South Carolina determined September 20 for the execution of inmate Freddie Eugene Owens, which is the first execution of the death penalty in the state in more than 13 years, the Associated Press reported, cited by BTA.
South Carolina was once one of the states with the highest number of executions, but for years it has had trouble procuring drugs for lethal injection because of drug companies' fears that they would have to disclose that they had sold the drugs to officials persons.
The state Legislature has since passed a law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug providers secret, and in July the state Supreme Court cleared the way for executions to resume.
Owens, who in 1997 killed a clerk at a Greenville store, will likely be able to choose whether to die by lethal injection, electrocution or the newly added option of being shot. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Utah inmate was the last person executed by firing squad in the United States in 2010.
The prison director has five days to confirm that all three methods of execution will be available. He must also provide Owens' lawyers with proof that the lethal injection drug was stable and properly mixed, according to the Supreme Court's 2023 interpretation of the state's execution secrecy law.
After that, Owens, 46, will have about a week to tell state authorities how he wants to be killed. If he doesn't make a choice, the state will send him to the electric chair by default.
A Michigan man who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing his ex-girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter was sentenced to life in prison, the Associated Press reported, citing BTA.
According to prosecutors, Rashad Triss got into an argument with his ex-girlfriend at her Lansing apartment in July 2023. She stabbed Triss with a knife, who then stabbed her repeatedly and sexually assaulted her. Then he left.
The woman went to her mother's apartment in the same complex, leaving behind her 1-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, Winter Cole Smith. The responding police officers were unable to find the girl.
Tris crashed and wrecked his car in a Detroit suburb after the police spotted him, but the girl was not with him. Eventually, FBI agents found the little girl's body in an overgrown alley in Detroit. It was strangled with a cable from a mobile phone.
In March, Trice pleaded guilty to a federal charge of kidnapping resulting in death, admitting he took the girl from his home after an argument with her mother.