Freddie Owens is scheduled for execution in South Carolina on June 25, 2021 for the 1997 murder of Irene Graves.

Owens's execution, and the one of Brad Sigmon the week before, will be South Carolina's first executions in ten years. The execution is planned to be carried out by electrocution, as per a new state law which makes the default mode of execution the electric chair. Under the new law, inmates also have the choice to die by firing squad, but South Carolina currently does not have the infrastructure in place to perform an execution using that mode.

In scheduling an execution after 10 years without one, South Carolina makes itself an outlier in its use of the death penalty. The majority of other states are on a downward trend of executions, and increasingly, states are abolishing the practice altogether, including the southern state of Virginia, which repealed its death penalty law earlier this year.

Please sign the petition asking Governor Henry McMaster to do everything within his power to stop this execution, including issuing a stay, and seeking a path to clemency in the case.

Petitions will be delivered on your behalf at 12:00 pm noon Eastern Time on June 23rd.