A convicted killer on Death Row has reportedly made his attorney choose how he will be executed.
Freddie Owens, who has been awaiting his death in South Carolina since 1999, refused to decide on the method used to send him to meet his maker. Owens was presented with the state’s three available techniques, lethal injection, firing squad or electric chair.
However, despite being given until Friday, the prisoner responsible to claiming two lives declined to choose how to end his. Instead it was left to his defence lawyer, Emily Paavola, who was granted power of attorney and returned the relevant paperwork to prison officials on deadline day.
While Owens offered his reason for his unwillingness to select how he would die, Paavola picked lethal injection for her client, according to the Associated Press.
(Image: Sygma via Getty Images)
Owens is scheduled to be put to death on September 20, had no decision been made the default method would have been electric chair.
He is now set to be executed using a fatal dose of the sedative pentobarbital.
Owens was sentenced to capital punishment following the murder of Greenville petrol station worker, Irene Graves, during a string of robberies.
He later killed another inmate in prison.
His refusal to select was, he claimed, as he said it would be “akin to suicide” which is forbidden by his Muslim faith.
Alongside other death row inmates, Owens raised objections to the electric chair and firing squad, stating that these forms of punishment are cruel and unusual, violating the US Constitution.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
In a statement, Paavola said: “I have known Mr Owens for 15 years. Under the circumstances, and in light of the information currently available to me, I made the best decision I felt I could make on his behalf.”
Owens is the first of five inmates who have run out of all their appeals and are now facing the death chamber.
His defense team are hoping that they can delay the pending execution through last-ditch legal challenges.
The lawyers are objecting to the insufficient information they have about the quality of the pentobarbital that is set to be used. They claim that if the drug is faulty or ineffective, it could have severe consequences for the prisoner.
(Image: Getty Images)
His attorneys are also requesting a delay in the execution to allow more time to review new evidence in his case. The South Carolina Daily Gazette reported that a motion filed with the state’s supreme court, claimed that a plea deal offered to Owens’ co-defendant has emerged, raising questions about his conviction.
Steven Golden, a friend of Owens who took part in the robbery, was the sole witness to the murder, and no other forensic evidence exists.
According to the motion, Golden was presented with a plea deal that would spare him from the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole if he testified against his friend. This key detail was kept from Owens’ lawyers during the trial.
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