COLUMBIA — Attorneys for death row inmates are asking the state Supreme Court to wait until after New Year’s Day to issue any more death warrants, according to court filings.The attorneys’ request, filed last week, would have the court pause in issuing execution notices until Jan. 3. By law, each execution takes place four weeks after the warrant is sent, making Jan. 31 the next time an inmate would enter the death chamber if the state Supreme Court agrees.
“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 inmates’ attorneys wrote.
After a holiday break, executions could resume at the regular five-week interval, the lawyers wrote.
Attorneys previously had requested the court wait at least 13 weeks between executions to protect the mental health of corrections staff working in the death chamber and give them time to address any logistical problems. After the state’s attorneys said they were ready to carry out executions in quick succession, the Supreme Court ultimately landed on five weeks.
Under that schedule, inmate Marion Bowman was set to receive a death warrant Friday setting his execution date for Dec. 6. But Friday came and went without a warrant or an explanation as to why the court decided not to issue it.
Bowman, 44, was convicted in 2002 of fatally shooting a 21-year-old Orangeburg mother who owed him money, putting her body in her trunk and setting the vehicle on fire in rural Dorchester County.
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The state has already executed two inmates since September, when the state Supreme Court ended a 13-year hiatus in deciding that firing squad and electrocution were constitutional means of death. Lethal injection is also an option after a secrecy law allowed corrections officials to replenish their supply.
The state put Freddie Owens to death Sept. 20, some 25 years after he was convicted of killing gas station clerk Irene Graves, a 41-year-old single mother of three, during a string of robberies on Halloween night 1997.
Richard Moore, 59, was executed Nov. 1, about 23 years after a jury convicted him of killing of James Mahoney, a gas station clerk, in Spartanburg County in September 1999.
Four inmates, all of whom are listed in last Tuesday’s request for a pause, are slated for execution in the coming months after exhausting their appeals.
While no major problems have been publicly reported during the two most recent executions, a pause would give attorneys and corrections staff the chance to address any potential issues and ensure coming executions go without incident, the attorneys wrote.
“Even in the best of circumstances, there is always a risk attached to executions of error, serious harm, and even torture,” the inmates’ attorneys wrote. “By adjusting those circumstances to provide a brief respite, the Court can help preserve the capacity of corrections staff and minimize the risks of such errors.”
The state’s attorneys called those concerns speculation, saying nothing has yet gone wrong, so there’s no reason to think any of the upcoming executions will have issues, according to court filings. Media witnesses to the past two executions said the inmates did not seem to outwardly suffer, the Daily Gazette has previously reported.
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The state has executed inmates during the winter months in previous years, including a spate of five executions between Dec. 4, 1998, and Jan. 22, 1999, the Attorney General’s Office wrote in response.
“The State stands ready to duly and carefully carry out its obligations under the law,” the filing reads.
The inmates have known the schedule of executions since August, when the state Supreme Court first decided to wait five weeks between warrants and released the order in which inmates could expect to receive their death warrants. If the inmates’ lawyers had a problem with the timing, they should have brought it up sooner, the attorney general’s office argued.
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