"Choose one of the three ways to execute the death penalty" What if the death penalty doesn't choose?
Aug 26, 2024
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Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, a murderer who is about to be executed in South Carolina on Sept. 20 (local time), must choose one of three methods by the end of this month: lethal injection, electric chair, and shooting, according to U.S. media such as Fox News and AP.
If he chooses nothing, he will sit in the electric chair, which is a 'basic' execution.
Owens, who was sentenced to death for killing a store employee in Greenville in 1997, also brutally killed his cellmate in the Greenville County Jail where he was being held in 1999.
Owens, who has less than a month left to execute, can ask the governor to reduce his sentence to life without parole. However, local media observe that the possibility is low.
Since the reintroduction of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, 43 people have been executed in South Carolina.
In the early 2000s, three executions were carried out annually, and only nine states executed more than this.
Since then, the execution has not been carried out for a while as there is no remaining amount of injection drugs used for execution and pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to supply additional supplies.
The last execution in South Carolina was in May 2011.
Then, as the Act on Confidentiality of Injection Suppliers was passed and electric chairs and firing squads were included, executions became possible in 13 years.
As a result, there are observations that executions will take place one after another.
In early 2011, there were 63 people on death row in South Carolina, but now there are around 32.
Twenty people on death row won an appeal trial and were sentenced to another sentence, while 11 died of natural causes.
In addition to Owens, at least three other death row inmates have been confirmed to the Supreme Court.
bellho@sportschosun.com
