COLUMBIA, S.C. — Freddie Owens is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, when he will be brought into South Carolina’s death chamber and given a lethal injection.
Details about how he spends his final day, however, will not be made public due to the state’s shield law and the S.C. Department of Corrections policy.
The shield law was passed, in part, to help the state obtain the drug used to carry out its first execution in 13 years. The provisions of the law, however, extend beyond hiding the manufacturer and suppliers of the drugs. Details about when he eats his last meal, if he is visited by family or clergy, how and when the drugs are administered and what he does or who he spends time with during the day are among the details hidden by the law, Chrysti Shain, Department of Corrections spokesperson said.
“We are not releasing information about how the drugs are administered or his movement per policy. Any information about who spends time with him is covered under the shield law,” Shain said in an email.
What Owens eats for his last meal will be released Friday, according to Shain.
His final 20 minutes will be made public through eyewitness accounts, including three members of the media.
Jeffrey Collins, longtime South Carolina reporter at the Associated Press, has observed six lethal injections and one electrocution death. This will be his seventh.
Collins said the shield law may have changed some rules surrounding the execution and witnesses, and procedures may have changed since 2011, when the state held its last execution.
Collins said while things could have changed since the last execution, the events usually happened as follows from his memory of previous executions.
A black curtain rises and the person being executed is on a gurney, with a sheet stretched up to about their chest or higher. Their arms are outstretched and their face is not covered for the lethal injection.
The warden introduces who is reading the last statement. It is typically a lawyer or the warden, Collins said. Some other states allow the inmate to speak their last words.
Fifteen minutes before the execution takes place, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and Attorney General Alan Wilson will be on a phone call with the prison warden and SCDC Director Bryan Stirling.
The warden will ask the attorney general if there are any pending legal issues that will prevent the execution from being carried out, and then the warden then asks the governor if he will exercise clemency. If the governor says no, the execution goes forward.
Both McMaster and Wilson will stay on the call during the execution and be given a “narration” as to what is happening. This includes when drugs are being administered, when the prison officials are checking for a pulses and when a doctor comes in to pronounce the prisoner deceased.
The warden will announce that the execution will proceed, and from there, not much else is heard, Collins said.
“What’s weird is you just kind of sit there and wait,” Collins said.
Collins said about 10 minutes later is usually when a doctor comes out with a stethoscope and puts it on the inmate. There was some sort of communication between the warden and the doctor, whether verbal or a nod, and then the warden announced the state carried out the sentence at whatever time it ended.
As witnesses are led out, they sign that they are a witness to an execution.
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