Greenville County inmate scheduled to be first person executed in South Carolina in 13 years

A Greenville County inmate will be the first person to face execution in South Carolina since 2011.

Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, was ordered to be executed on Sept. 20 after spending more than 20 years on death row, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced.

Owens was served with the order Friday evening.

Under state law, Owens is allowed to elect the method of execution. The Department of Corrections said he will be allowed to choose between lethal injection, firing squad and the electric chair 14 days prior.

Owens was convicted of murder, armed robbery and criminal conspiracy. He was sentenced to death in 1999 after robbing and killing a Greenville convenience store employee, Irene Graves, in 1997.

Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court ruled that all of South Carolina’s execution methods are constitutional. The ruling allowed state executions to resume. The state has 33 people waiting to be executed, The State previously reported. Several of those awaiting execution have exhausted their appeals.

The case came before the court after four death row inmates, including Owens, brought a lawsuit in Richland County more than two years ago. It argued that the two methods of execution at the time — electrocution and firing squad — were unconstitutional.

“The state did not ‘inflict’ an ‘unusual punishment’ as the section prohibits. Rather, the state gave inmates a choice, and ‘choice’ is not ‘unusual’ under our constitution,” Justice John Few wrote in the majority opinion.

In 2022, state Judge Jocelyn Newman had ruled executions by electrocution and firing squad were unconstitutional, citing the state Constitution, which bars “cruel,” “corporal” and “unusual” punishment. In February, Associate Justice John Kittredge said Newman’s argument was “riddled with errors.”

The electric chair recently became the state’s default method of execution.

Before that, it was lethal injection. But the Department of Corrections had trouble getting the drugs until Gov. Henry McMaster signed a “shield” law, which allows the state to keep the pharmaceutical companies involved in the transactions secret.

This story was originally published August 24, 2024 at 12:06 PM with the headline "Greenville County inmate scheduled to be first person executed in South Carolina in 13 years."

Alexa Jurado

The State

Alexa Jurado is a news reporter for The State covering Lexington County and Richland County schools. She previously wrote about the University of South Carolina and contributes to this coverage. A Chicago suburbs native, Alexa graduated from Marquette University and previously wrote for publications in Illinois and Wisconsin. Her work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, the Milwaukee Press Club and the South Carolina Press Association.