Restraints are shown on the lethal injection table in the execution chamber at the Utah State Correctional Facility after the Taberon Honie execution Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)
COLUMBIA — A federal judge said Wednesday she will not halt the state’s first execution in 13 years over attorneys’ request for more information on the lethal drugs.
Attorneys for Freddie Owens, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection Friday, asked for a delay in his execution after filing a federal lawsuit in Columbia last week arguing condemned inmates need more information about the state’s supply of pentobarbital.
But U.S. District Judge Jacquelyn Austin said in Wednesday’s order the attorneys’ argument was not convincing enough for her to stop Owens’ execution while the latest lawsuit plays out.
The lawsuit centers around a secrecy law legislators expanded in 2023 to protect the identity of drug manufacturers after years of companies refusing to sell drugs to the state to kill people. The law worked. Last September, Corrections Director Bryan Stirling announced the agency had secured enough of the sedative pentobarbital, which is lethal in high doses, to resume executions.
Attorneys for Owens and five other inmates who could be scheduled for execution over the next seven months argued that, even under the secrecy law, inmates are entitled to a certain amount of information about the drugs.
That includes how and when the drugs were tested, the full results of the testing, how the drugs will be stored and monitored, and when the drugs expire. If any one of those goes wrong ahead of an execution, it could fail to kill an inmate, leaving him with lasting injuries, or make him die a painful death, attorneys argued.
SC Supreme Court will not halt upcoming execution; activists call for clemency
The attorneys also asked for the credentials of the people inserting the IV who will deliver the fatal drug. And they argued the state should still have to prove they’re following licensing and regulation requirements when buying drugs for lethal injection. They don’t have to publicly verify that under the secrecy law, according to legal filings.
That “creates risks of insufficient potency, contamination, or being an entirely different substance than indicated on the label,” the lawsuit reads. “These risks may lead to a failed or torturous execution.”
By saying the state had tested the drugs, Stirling gave Owens as much information as the law requires, Austin wrote in her order. Owens was also allowed to choose his method of execution without having his rights violated. Because of that, Owens did not have enough of a case to warrant pausing his execution, the judge wrote.
“The statute gives him the right to choose his method of execution — period, not the right to discover what is, objectively, the best choice, nor the right to discover whether the execution methods are constitutional,” Austin wrote.
Without intervention from the courts, the only way to stop Owens’ execution would be for Gov. Henry McMaster to grant him clemency. Owens’ attorneys and a group of activists have asked McMaster to do so.
McMaster has told reporters he will not announce his decision until the prison warden calls him to ask at 5:45 p.m., 15 minutes before Owens is scheduled to die.
Owens’ attorneys made similar arguments to the state Supreme Court. The high court denied the attorneys’ request for more information, saying anything officials divulged could be used to track down the companies supplying the drugs.
One of Owens’ attorneys, who he had given decision-making powers over his execution method, decided he would die by lethal injection instead of electrocution or firing squad, the other options available by law. At the same time, she continued to question whether the drugs were as effective as Corrections officials claim.
“Under the circumstances, and in light of the information currently available to me, I made the best decision I felt I could make on his behalf,” attorney Emily Paavola said in a statement while selecting lethal injection.