The South Carolina Supreme Court in Columbia. (Mary Ann Chastain / Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — The South Carolina Supreme Court will start issuing execution warrants again, waiting at least five weeks between each one, according to a Friday court filing.
The high court’s decision represents a middle ground between condemned inmates’ request to wait 13 weeks and the state’s proposal of four weeks between death warrants.
Last Friday, the court said it would not to issue any more execution orders until it settled the matter. That decision came shortly after the court scheduled Freddie Owens for death on Sept. 20, which would be the state’s first execution in 13 years.
Richard Moore would be the next to die, the court decided Friday, including the order in which it intends to issue execution warrants in its decision.
Moore was convicted in 2001 for shooting and killing a gas station clerk in 1999. Moore’s death sentence has been particularly contentious because he entered the gas station unarmed. The jury that convicted Moore, who is Black, also had no Black people serving.
SC death row inmate wants his attorney to decide how he will die
Although the Supreme Court did not entirely agree with the inmates’ request for 13 weeks between executions, “we nevertheless recognize that a reasonable interval between the issuance of death notices is warranted,” the court wrote in its order signed by all five justices Friday.
Sept. 27 would be the earliest the court could issue another notice of execution under its new timeline. Because each execution is scheduled for four Fridays after the court releases the notice, Oct. 25 would be the earliest another execution could take place.
The court did include an open-ended exception in its ruling, saying it could issue notices more quickly “should circumstances warrant,” according to Friday’s order.
State law does not specify how long the court must go between scheduling inmates for death. That opened up the potential for the court to schedule five executions in the span of five weeks, inmates’ attorneys said in their initial petition.
That’s not unheard of for South Carolina. The state previously put six people to death over the span of seven weeks between December 1998 and January 1999, according to the attorney general’s office.
But scheduling executions in such quick succession raised a number of concerns, inmates’ attorneys argued. The speed could increase the possibility of an error, potentially causing an inmate to suffer as he died. If something did go wrong, executioners would not have time to learn from their mistakes or adjust protocols before the next execution. And staff members carrying out executions might suffer physically and mentally from the toll of having to put multiple people to death back to back, the attorneys wrote.
The state’s attorneys called those concerns speculation. None have been a problem during previous executions, and Department of Corrections employees are ready to carry out their duties, the state’s attorneys wrote.
Putting 13 weeks between executions would cause an unnecessary delay, the attorney general’s office continued in its reply. Under the inmates’ proposal, the state would have been able to conduct four executions per year if it started in January.
Order of executions
The court on Friday also addressed a second question raised by inmate’s lawyers over the decision to schedule Owens’ execution first. It was because his conviction was the oldest, not because he was the first to run out of appeals, the court wrote in its Friday order.
After Owens and Moore, the next to receive death warrants, in order, could be:
Marion Bowman, 44, who was convicted in 2001 of killing a woman who he said owed him money and burning her body in Dorchester County.
Brad Sigmon, 66, who was convicted in 2002 of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents the year before in Greenville County.
Mikal Mahdi, 41, who was convicted in 2006 of killing a gas station clerk and police officer during a multi-state crime spree that ended in Calhoun County.
Steven Bixby, 57, who was convicted in 2007 of killing two police officers during a 12-hour standoff at his house in Abbeville County.
Two other men have exhausted their appeals but are waiting for judges to decide whether they are mentally competent enough to be executed.
Executions in SC would continue monthly until at least March under AG’s suggested timeline
Bixby has a pending appeal asking the Supreme Court to reopen part of his case, but because that falls outside the normal appeals process, it is possible for the state to issue him a death notice, according to the attorney general’s office.
The court is still considering whether Owens, who a jury convicted in 1999 of killing a gas station clerk during a string of robberies two years prior, can allow his attorney to decide how he will die. Owens signed his decision-making power to his attorney before the court scheduled his execution.
While he does not want to die by electrocution, which legislators set as the default in 2021, Owens views deciding the way he will die as a means of suicide and therefor has a religious conviction against it, his attorney wrote in a Thursday legal filing.
Inmates have the option to die by electrocution, lethal injection or firing squad after the state Supreme Court ruled last month that all three are constitutional. All three methods are ready for use, Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling testified in front of a judge Wednesday.