South-Carolina
South Carolina Supreme Court ruling lists order six death row inmates will be executed
![South Carolina Supreme Court ruling lists order six death row inmates will be executed South Carolina Supreme Court ruling lists order six death row inmates will be executed](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/071ef3a5c6b32ba3e9ce60b262250caf57e15eee/c=0-690-3156-2465/local/-/media/Greenville/2014/12/12/B9315415566Z.1_20141212143714_000_GLS9BO80H.1-0.jpg?auto=webp&format=pjpg&width=1200)
Three Upstate men on South Carolina’s death row now know the order in which the state will put them to death.
The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Friday on a petition filed by the men and three others requesting there be at least a 13-week interval between executions. The court responded by setting at least a 35-day minimum between executions.
The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office replied to the inmate’s petition stating there should be “no more than 28 days between executions.” Their reasoning being that a 13-week interval would mean “only two executions could be completed this year” and that “it would take all next year to complete the remaining four.”
A Columbia-based nonprofit advocacy group for inmates, Justice 360, led the inmates in signing the petition. The group declined to comment about the Supreme Court’s decision.
South Carolina last carried out an execution in 2011. Jeffery Brian Motts, 36, of Greenville died via lethal injection.
Here’s the list of inmates expected to be executed in the coming months, all have exhausted their appeals beginning with Freddie Eugene Owens, of Greenville, whose execution has been set for Sept. 20.
More: Greenville deputies suspect a man shot his mother and grandmother before killing himself
Freddie Eugene Owens
On Aug. 23, the South Carolina Department of Corrections gave Owens, 46, notice that he would be executed on Sept. 20.
In 1999, Ownes was convicted of murder in the 1997 Halloween murder of Irene Graves, 41, at a Speedway convenience store. He was sentenced to death.
Owens was originally scheduled to be put to death on June 25, 2021, but he and other death row inmates listed filed a lawsuit that halted the execution.
Owens will have until Sept. 6 to decide his choice of execution.
Richard Benard Moore
Richard Moore, 59, of Spartanburg, was convicted of killing a convenience store clerk in 1999.
Moore received the death penalty on Oct. 22, 2001, after a jury found him guilty of murder for shooting 42-year-old James Mahoney on Sept. 16, 1999, at Nikki’s Speedy Mart in Spartanburg’s Whitney Community.
He was set to be executed in April 2022, but it was also halted because of the lawsuit.
Marion Bowman Jr.
On May 24, 2002, Marion Bowman, 44, was convicted of the murder of KanDee Louise Martin, 21, of Orangeburg.
Bowman was sentenced to death a year later on May 23, 2003.
According to South Carolina Supreme Court documents, Bowman shot and killed Martin on Feb. 17, 2001, then set a car on fire with Martin’s body inside to hide the evidence.
Brad Sigmon
In 2001, Brad Sigmon, 66, of Greenville, was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke. He was placed on death row in July 2002.
He was also sentenced to 30 years in prison for burglary.
Sigmon’s death order was given in April 2022, and execution was set for May 13, 2022, but it was stayed.
Steven Bixby
A Chesterfield County jury gave Steven Bixby, 57, the death sentence in 2007 for the murder of a sheriff deputy and state constable.
In December 2003, Bixby along with his parents, Rita Leona Bixby and Arthur Walls Bixby, shot and killed Abbeville County Sheriff Deputy Danny Wilson and State Constable Donnie Outz.
The shooting occurred after the Bixby family had a dispute with the South Carolina Department of Transportation over the widening of Highway 72. They were upset that a part of their property was to be used for the widening.
Both parents died while in prison.
More: Netflix-star, Greenville-native Rob ‘The Rabbit’ Pitts dies; memorial service details
Mikal Mahdi
Mikal Mahdi, 41, was a resident of Virginia when he went on an East Coast crime spree that ended when he killed a South Carolina deputy.
In 2006, Mahdi pled guilty to the murder and robbery of a North Carolina store clerk and Orangeburg County Sheriff’s captain. He was sentenced to death the same year.
Mahdi started his murder spree on July 15, 2004, when he used a stolen vehicle to travel to Winston-Salem. According to court documents, Mahdi shot and killed a convenience store clerk. Three days later, OCSO Capt. James Myers discovered Mahdi hiding in a shed on his property. Mahdi shot Myers using a gun he found on the property.
Mahdi was eventually caught by law enforcement in Florida.
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South-Carolina
Unemployment claims in South Carolina declined last week
![Unemployment claims in South Carolina declined last week Unemployment claims in South Carolina declined last week](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/84782def0a8168006e51cc1bbaed01bd1f204c58/c=0-38-724-445/local/-/media/2021/06/29/Newport/gda-unemployment-2021-06-24-img.jpg?auto=webp&format=pjpg&width=1200)
Initial filings for unemployment benefits in South Carolina dropped last week compared with the week prior, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday.
New jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell to 2,005 in the week ending August 24, down from 2,590 the week before, the Labor Department said.
U.S. unemployment claims dropped to 231,000 last week, down 2,000 claims from 233,000 the week prior on a seasonally adjusted basis.
North Dakota saw the largest percentage increase in weekly claims, with claims jumping by 313.7%. New Hampshire, meanwhile, saw the largest percentage drop in new claims, with claims dropping by 24%.
The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment insurance claims report.
South-Carolina
Guest Column: South Carolina Housing Market Needs More Building, Less Regulation – FITSNews
![Guest Column: South Carolina Housing Market Needs More Building, Less Regulation – FITSNews Guest Column: South Carolina Housing Market Needs More Building, Less Regulation – FITSNews](https://www.fitsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/gettyimages-1925865357-1024x640.jpg)
Less regulation? Have you seen some of the shoddy workmanship that goes into most new homes? Have you seen the overloaded roads that can’t keep up with construction as it is today? Oh yeah, the only regulation this site entertains is making sure poors don’t get mixed in with middle class homes.
This blog has its finger on a construction company CEO’s massage chair and swears it is SC’s pulse rate.
South-Carolina
South Carolina prepares for first execution in more than 13 years
![South Carolina prepares for first execution in more than 13 years South Carolina prepares for first execution in more than 13 years](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3252a58698945c12aca4b292f8f097c3ae8cc133/407_116_3623_2176/master/3623.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=f239150e8764cb12481210414d89b69e)
A man on death row in South Carolina has until 6 September to decide how he would prefer to be executed by the state.
South Carolina’s prisons director has declared the state’s supply of a lethal injection drug acceptable and said its electric chair was tested two months ago and its firing squad has the ammunition and training to carry out its first execution next month in more than 13 years, if needed.
Corrections director Bryan Stirling was ordered by the state supreme court to submit a sworn statement to the lawyer for Freddie Owens certifying that all three methods of putting a prisoner to death are available for his scheduled 20 September execution.
Owens’s lawyers have said they will review the statement, and if they do not think it is adequate, they will ask the state supreme court or federal judges to consider it.
Owens, 46, was sentenced in 1999 for shooting and killing Irene Graves, a gas station employee in Greenville during a robbery in 1997.
Owens has until 6 September to decide how he wants to die, and he signed his power of attorney over to his lawyer, Emily Paavola, to make that decision for him. The state supreme court has agreed to a request from the prison system to see if that is allowed under South Carolina law.
The power of attorney was signed under the name Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah. Owens changed his name in prison but goes by his old name in his legal hearings with the state to avoid confusion.
In the sworn statement, Stirling said technicians at the state Law Enforcement Division laboratory tested two vials of the sedative pentobarbital, which the state plans to use for lethal injections.
Stirling released no other details about the drugs under the guidelines of the state’s new shield law, which keeps secret the name of the supplier of the drug and anyone who helps carry out the execution. The law’s passage in 2023 also helped restart executions so the state could buy pentobarbital and keep the supplier private.
The state’s electric chair, built in 1912, was tested 25 June and found to be working properly, Stirling wrote, without providing additional details.
The firing squad, allowed by a 2021 law, has the guns, ammunition and training it needs, Stirling wrote. Three volunteers have been trained to fire at a target placed on the heart from 15ft away.
In South Carolina, the governor, Henry McMaster, has the ability to grant clemency to an individual on death row. However, no governor has done so in the state’s past 43 executions, the Associated Press reports, adding that McMaster told reporters on Tuesday that he would only announce his decision minutes before the execution when prison officials dial his office from the death chamber.
“When the rule of law has been followed, there really is only one answer,” McMaster said.
In response to McMaster’s comments, Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said: “Just because something is law does not mean that it is justice. Justice would actually be making sure that we interrupt and prevent violence from happening in the first place, not execute somebody who’s been on death row for decades.”
Earlier this week, Taylor’s organization circulated a petition for clemency from McMaster, which has garnered more than 1,300 signatures.
“Khalil Allah … is somebody who experienced profound trauma as a child [and] as an adolescent, both in terms of his family of origin and also the South Carolina judicial system … We do not believe that Khalil should be executed for things that are our fault as a society,” said Taylor.
Calling the death penalty “cheap justice”, Taylor added: “We would literally be better spending money on protecting children and creating more victim services for people who are experiencing violence and harm … The death penalty doesn’t do any of that.”
Taylor also pushed back on the conservative state’s so-called “pro-life” stance on reproductive rights, particularly its six-week abortion ban amid the backdrop of its death penalty law.
“There are government officials in South Carolina who like to brag that South Carolina is an extremely pro-life state, and if indeed all lives matter, then Khalil’s life especially matters because of the ways that he has been let down. He does not deserve to be cut off from this life. He deserves to live,” she said.
The South Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also condemned the death penalty, with executive director Jace Woodrum saying: “The state is preparing to kill one of our neighbors under a shroud of secrecy. Politicians and prison officials have not only hidden key details about all three execution methods, but they have refused to allow media interviews with people held on death row as they make their last pleas for clemency. We are joining faith leaders, civil rights leaders, and people of good conscience around our state calling on governor McMaster to stop this execution and all others.”
The Guardian has asked the governor’s office for comment.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
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