FEARS that South Carolina has carried out an “unjust state murder” — the first execution for 13 years — have been voiced by the one of the state’s Episcopalian bishops.
Last Friday, Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, previously known as Freddie Owens, was put to death in Columbia by lethal injection, for the murder of Irene Graves during an armed robbery in 1997, when he was aged 19. He was also convicted of killing a fellow inmate while on trial for Ms Graves’s murder.
He was executed even though his co-defendant, Steve Golden, had retracted his evidence and signed a sworn statement that Owens was not present at the time of the robbery and killing. But the state’s Supreme Court, saying that the testimony was inconsistent, refused to halt the execution.
Christians had gathered outside the prison to hold a vigil in protest at the execution, the first carried out since 2011. Executions had paused after pharmaceutical companies stopped selling the lethal drugs for them in the wake of a growing backlash at their use; but, last year, South Carolina passed a law to conceal suppliers’ identities. Five more executions are now scheduled.
In an email to the Church Times, the Bishop of Upper South Carolina, the Rt Revd Daniel Richards, wrote: “His conviction was based on an unclear, grainy video of the crime and a statement from a co-defendant who stood to avoid the death penalty by his statement, a statement he retracted at the last minute before Freddie Owens’ execution.
“We hold a standard of guilt in criminal cases of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ to convict. Here at the executioner’s chamber, we should have at least that before we risk incurring weightier guilty through an unjust state murder.
“There are many faithful Christians who cry out for an end to all executions. I support their cry even as I recognise the need for the rare exception when the crime is extraordinarily heinous, or when the criminal represents an ongoing threat to others that cannot be mediated by incarceration. In both cases, the convicted person’s guilt must be unassailable. This was not the case here.”
Bishop Richards said that he was very aware of the suffering of victims, but that “pursuing justice is a sacred duty for any community”.
“It is difficult to be sure, even in trivial cases. It is even more difficult to be certain when the stakes are absolute, especially in our nation with its history of disproportionate application of the death penalty for those of African descent. Any life sentence or death penalty must be held to the highest standards of both the seriousness of offense and the absolute certainty of guilt. This does not reduce the horror or grief of the crimes considered or the suffering of victims, but it instead ensures that we do not act to further suffering, grief, and horror with further injustice.”
The executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the Revd Hillary Taylor, a Methodist minister, said that the flaws in the case were a reminder that “the death penalty is not given to the ‘worst of the worst’, it is given to the people who are least able to represent themselves in court.
“Khalil’s execution shows the inherent discrimination of the death penalty: our justice system does not care that the right person is executed. Any person is an adequate substitute, especially if that person is young, Black, poor, and disabled.”