Convict offered choice of poison, bullet in head or electric chair

In the US, a person sentenced to capital punishment was offered to choose the type of execution. This is about writes RadarOnline.com.

South Carolina will hold its first execution since 2011 on September 20, 2024. The state suspended executions because of difficulties in obtaining injectable drugs: pharmaceutical companies began refusing to supply them, not wanting to be associated with negative events and prisons. A new law that allows for confidentiality of drug suppliers has paved the way for executions to resume.

Freddie Eugene Owens, convicted in the 1997 murder of a store clerk, will be the first inmate to be executed since 2011. He will have three options: poison injection, the electric chair, or a bullet to the head. The latter is a new option in South Carolina. Authorities have said that if Owens refuses to choose, he will face the electric chair.

The state Department of Corrections has five days to confirm availability of all three methods and ensure the injectable drug is of the proper quality and mixed properly.

Owens may ask Gov. Henry McMaster for clemency. No South Carolina governor has granted such a request in the past.

Earlier it was reported that the US Supreme Court decided to spare the life of the criminal 20 minutes before the execution of the sentence in order to consider his petition. Ruben Gutierrez was convicted of the massacre of an 85-year-old woman in her own home in 1998.