execution

South Carolina's high court on Friday set a date of Nov. 1 to put to death a man who killed a store clerk a quarter-century ago, the second of an expected six executions in about six months as the state ramps up its use of capital punishment after a 13-year pause.

South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death Friday as the state restarted executions after an unintended 13-year pause because prison officials couldn't get the drugs needed for lethal injections.

Freddie Eugene Owens is scheduled to be executed Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, by lethal injection. Owens' execution will be South Carolina's first since 2011.

A condemned man was forced to choose how he’ll be put to death in South Carolina.

Lawyers for the South Carolina inmate scheduled to be put to death later this month say state prison officials didn’t provide enough information about the drug to decide whether he wants to die by lethal injection.

South Carolina’s Supreme Court is promising to wait at least five weeks between putting inmates to death as the state restarts it death chamber with up to six executions looming.

The state is poised to carry out its first execution in more than a decade after the Department of Corrections secured the drug pentobarbital.

South Carolina's highest court will hear arguments on whether a newly organized firing squad or the old electric chair are legal ways to execute inmates in the state. The South Carolina Supreme Court will hear an appeal Thursday of a lower court ruling that executions by electrocution or firing squad cause excruciating pain and are cruel and unusual punishments. South Carolina hasn't conducted an execution since 2011. Since then, the state's lethal injection drugs have expired and administrators have been unable to buy more. That led lawmakers in 2021 to pass a bill essentially requiring condemned inmates to be electrocuted unless they choose the firing squad.

It's unknown how long a stay will hold off the execution of South Carolina's first-ever inmate to be put to death by a firing squad as his attorneys pursue legal challenges. But the issuance of Richard Bernard Moore's death warrant has renewed interest in how a state puts in motion its plans to shoot an inmate to death. South Carolina had planned to put Moore to death by firing squad on April 29. The state added the method to its approved capital punishment methods last year. Since then, prisons officials have been retrofitting the death chamber to add a slot in the wall through which three volunteers will shoot rifles at the condemn's heart.

The South Carolina Supreme Court has put another execution on hold, two days after temporarily blocking plans for a rare firing squad execution. The court issued an order Friday granting inmate Brad Keith Sigmon a temporary stay ahead of his scheduled May 13 execution. The state's highest court on Wednesday had paused plans for an April 29 firing squad execution of Richard Moore. Moore and Sigmon would have been the first death row inmates put to death by South Carolina after a 2021 law made electrocution the default and also gave prisoners the option to choose a firing squad. Sigmon had so far not chosen an execution method.