South Carolina is beginning to schedule executions again after a pause for the holidays, with the state Supreme Court setting the next one for Jan. 31.
The state is looking to carry out death sentences for several inmates who are out of appeals but who had their executions delayed because prison officials could not obtain lethal injection drugs.
Marion Bowman Jr., 44, is set to be put to death at the end of January for his murder conviction in the shooting of a friend whose burned body was found in the trunk of her car in Dorchester County in 2001.
Bowman's lawyers said Friday that he maintains his innocence. His lawyers also argue that putting him to death would be "unconscionable" due to unresolved doubts about his conviction.
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He would be the third inmate executed since September after the state obtained lethal injection drugs. The first two — Freddie Owens, who was put to death on Sept. 20, and Richard Moore, who was executed on Nov. 1 — chose to die by lethal injection, but inmates can also choose electrocution or a new firing squad.
Three additional inmates are awaiting execution dates. The state Supreme Court ruled that executions can be set five weeks apart.
The court could have set Bowman's execution date as early as Dec. 6, but the court accepted without comment a request from lawyers for the four inmates awaiting execution to delay the executions until January.
"Six consecutive executions with virtually no respite will take a substantial toll on all involved, particularly during a time of year that is so important to families," the lawyers wrote in court documents.
Attorneys representing the state responded that prison officials were prepared to maintain the original schedule and that the state had conducted executions around Christmas and New Year's in the past, including five between Dec. 4, 1998, and Jan. 8, 1999.
Once one of the busiest states for executions, South Carolina had a 13-year pause on executions before resuming this past fall due to trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs after its supply expired because of pharmaceutical companies' concerns that they would have to disclose that they had sold the drugs to state officials. But the state legislature passed a shield law two years ago allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers private.
In July, the state Supreme Court cleared the way to resume executions.
Death row inmates can also ask Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, for clemency, but no governor in the state has ever reduced a death sentence to life in prison without parole in the modern era of the death penalty.
South Carolina’s prisons director has until next week to confirm that lethal injection, the electric chair and the newly added option of a firing squad are all available options for Bowman.
The last time an inmate in the U.S. was executed by a firing squad was in Utah in 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Bowman was convicted of killing Kandee Martin, 21, in 2001. Several friends and family members testified against him as part of plea deals they reached with prosecutors.
One friend said Bowman was upset because Martin owed him money, while a second testified that Bowman believed Martin was wearing a recording device to have him arrested.
Bowman’s lawyers asked the state Supreme Court to delay his execution to allow a hearing on his last-ditch appeal arguing that his trial lawyer was not prepared and had too much sympathy for the white victim and not his black client.
His current lawyers said Friday that he did not receive a fair trial and lacked effective legal representation.
Bowman's trial lawyer pressured him to plead guilty and "made other poor decisions based on his racist views rather than strategic legal counsel," according to Lindsey S. Vann, executive director of the inmate-advocacy group Justice 360.
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"His conviction was based on unreliable, incentivized testimony from biased witnesses who received reduced or dropped sentences in exchange for their cooperation," wrote Vann, who issued the statement on behalf of Bowman's legal team.
South Carolina has executed 45 inmates since the death penalty was resumed in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, the state was carrying out an average of three executions per year. Only nine states have killed more inmates.
Since the unintentional execution pause starting in 2011, the state's death row population has been reduced significantly.
The state had 63 death row inmates in early 2011, but now only has 30. About 20 inmates have been removed from death row and received different sentences after successful appeals, while others have died of natural causes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
