this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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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.

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[–] DmMacniel@feddit.org 134 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And the state Supreme Court refused to stop Owens’ execution

When the blind justice has a hard-on for killing people...

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 month ago (4 children)

First execution in nearly 10 years.

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.org 52 points 1 month ago (37 children)

still bloodthirsty that they refuse that execution even though new information have come to light.

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[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

In South Carolina? First on-the-books in nearly 10 years.

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[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 107 points 1 month ago (8 children)

That the United States holds ourselves a bastion of democracy and human rights is absolutely absurd. The death penalty shouldn't exist; This is quite possibly murder.

[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 10 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I understand you're speaking casually, but in fact many of us do not say that. It's always a risky proposition when you conflate an organization with individuals in it.

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[–] joe_archer@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Killing somebody because they killed somebody just seems hypocritical. Regardless of the ethics.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (3 children)

From a strict utilitarian "this person is an active threat to the lives of others and cannot be rehabilitated" perspective, I get it. We kill wild animals for a lot less. Given perfect knowledge I don't have a hard line against execution.

But that's a hell of a hypothetical. Lots of violence is circumstantial and not necessarily and indication of future behavior, especially if we actually gave a shit about mental health and improving the living conditions of struggling people. Far too many convictions are improper or outright incorrect. Society should have a responsibility to care for the worst of itself. It all stacks up to "do we trust ourselves, and our government, with something so extreme and irreversible?"

[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Well it always costs more, in the US Justice system, to execute someone than to keep them in prison for life. So that alone throws out the utilitarian approach. We're all paying extra just to kill him now than if we just kept him locked up for life because he might be a direct threat to everyone and not be rehabilitated.

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[–] superkret@feddit.org 75 points 1 month ago (2 children)

FFS if you insist on keeping this barbaric custom, at least limit it to cases that are 100% sure.

[–] tlou3please@lemmy.world 52 points 1 month ago (12 children)

That's kinda what it comes down to for me though. Can you EVER be 100% sure? Even if you're 99.5% sure, odds are sooner or later you'll execute someone who was innocent. And in my opinion that one single lost innocent life means the practice is unjustifiable.

I wonder how many people who disagree with me are pro life.

[–] FlowVoid@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (11 children)

I think you can. For example, I am 100% sure that Ethan Crumbley shot his classmates. (That doesn't mean I think he should be executed though).

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Knowing about how deeply police intimidate, manipulate, and gaslight inmates/people in custody to get these confessions, both confessions should be under deep scrutiny.

"Criminals" intimated into confession is literally just the police refusing to do their actual jobs and using emotional and mental manipulation to "crack the case." They didn't find the killer, they just bullied a plausible suspect into "admitting" they did it.

Fucking sickening.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Confessions in police custody without being verified as voluntarily provided by defense counsel should not be admissible in court as a confession.

The death penalty should be abolished.

Appeals should have the same reasonable doubt standard as a trail. If new information introduces reasonable doubt is juat as important as whether they followed procedures during the trial. The whole idea that 'it should have been introduced at trial' is commonly used to dismiss appeals based on evidence that was excluded or not available at the time, especially for defendents that can't afford high priced lawyers.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The whole idea that ‘it should have been introduced at trial’

It's almost as if the entire "justice system" is designed to protect a certain class of person while fucking over everyone else. Cue the people so shocked that this "justice system" can easily be abused by people acting in bad faith to enable fascism. People have been brainwashed into believing that the USA isn't just Diet Fascism. Fascism with a pretty face, fascism with "free speech" so the plebes have a steam valve to release their frustration while also being told that protesting is too disruptive so they need to stick to "free speech zones" miles away from what they're protesting. Wild that it's so hard to put together when the original Constitution only allowed land-owning white men to vote.

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[–] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (9 children)

You will NEVER get the south to give up capital punishment.

The Bible belt will never accept that God is to be the ultimate judge, just like they will never accept the equality of the races.

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[–] RalphWolf@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 month ago (8 children)

And now he's dead.

What the hell is wrong with those people?!? If there's any doubt, then pause the execution.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Honestly, I don’t know. I wish I knew. I want to understand my opponents even if just to understand how best to fight them, but this just seems so blatantly evil I can’t understand it.

This attitude is what scares me even more than the Christian nationalist terrorism and bigotry. Because this blase approach to formal state sanctioned execution is how very evil people start moving the country towards a comfort with “if the government executed them then they deserved it”. We must remember that Holocaust began with criminals. I just don’t trust the government to kill anyone, and this right here is part of why.

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago

In a just society that would be a commutation at the very least. You don't use the death penalty if any doubt exists. Nobody is saying to set the man free. That can be adjudicated later, if at all.

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

I respect workers, and the vast majority of workers administering the death penalty become opposed to the death penalty.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/16/1136796857/death-penalty-executions-prison

Workers deserve protections, always. No worker should have to do this or witness this. The death penalty is cruel and unjust.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)
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[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

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 (emphasis added)

WTF?

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 month ago

Don't worry everybody. It's South Carolina, so there's no chance they won't execute him. Gdi.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The only people who should suffer the death penalty are those who advocate for it.

The actual capital punishment for human beings should be a lifelong attempt to teach them empathy and make them truly regret what they did. There are two extremes: people with a lot of empathy, and psychopaths. Every living being is on a spectrum between the two. If the spectrum is swinging too far to being a psychopath, keep them locked up forever - not as a punishment, but to protect society. If they are capable of learning empathy, make them truly regret their deeds and that will be punishment enough.

People who advocate for the death penalty are typically very far removed from empathetic human beings, toward the psychopath end of the scale.

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