Just days before inmate Freddie Owens is set to die by lethal injection in South Carolina, the friend whose testimony helped send Owens to prison is saying he lied to save himself from the death chamber.

Owens is set to die at 6 p.m. Friday at a Columbia prison for the killing of a Greenville convenience store clerk in 1997.

But Owens’ lawyers on Wednesday filed a sworn statement from his co-defendant Steven Golden late Wednesday to try to stop South Carolina from carrying out its first execution in more than a decade.

Prosecutors reiterated that several other witnesses testified that Owens told them he pulled the trigger. And the state Supreme Court refused to stop Owens’ execution last week after Golden, in a sworn statement, said that he had a secret deal with prosecutors that he never told the jury about.

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Guess innocence isn’t as important as the death penalty. They should have known that someone lied under oath at the time, right?

    Don’t be obtuse. Multiple lines of evidence were presented to convince 12 people that he was guilty.

    Guess we should just release everybody from prison because we can never know with 100% certainty that anyone ever did anything.

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      Don’t be obtuse. Multiple lines of evidence were presented to convince 12 people that he was guilty.

      No matter how many people believe that Haitian immigrants are eating cats, it doesn’t become true just because it is believed by many.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      There are a lot of options between release and execution. Maybe we should consider those.

    • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      I hope, if your life ever ends up on the line, you’re met with more sympathy and care than you are willing to show others. You’re being non-chalant about killing someone. Maybe you’re young and will develop empathy, but if this is you and always will be you then frankly I’d make the trade here.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        You’re being non-chalant about killing someone.

        I’m absolutely not. I don’t believe in the death penalty - and I’m not defending it. But you can’t throw out every case because somebody makes a new claim. Everybody in this thread is believing the new information unquestionably. The trial would have presented other corroborating evidence as well.

        It’s like how you still need to determine if somebody committed a crime even if they confess.

    • gl4d10@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      but the cheap labor?? the us wouldn’t survive without the prison system, don’t know why they’re wasting good drugs on the guy though, why waste a life unless we get to make some burgers out of him or something, right? god bless