Second Update on 9/18/24 -
The Supreme Court of South Carolina's this evening issued a denial of stopping the execution. Gerald "Bo" King, a member of Khalil's legal team released the following statement:
"We are disappointed by the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision not to intervene in Freddie Owens's case, despite compelling evidence of his innocence that emerged only yesterday. South Carolina is on the verge of executing a man for a crime he did not commit. We will continue to advocate for Mr. Owens.“
Update on 9/18/24 -
Steven Golden, Khalil's co-defendant released an affidavit claiming that "Freddie Owens (Khalil) is not the person who shot Irene Graves" and that he "was not present...that day.”
Claiming a crisis of consciousness, Golden is urging the state to provide a stay of execution because he "doesn't want Freddie to be executed for something he didn't do."
In response to this new affidavit, his lawyers filed a motion urging the state of South Carolina to reconsider his stay of execution.
--Original Post Below--
Attorneys for Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, also known as Freddie Eugene Owens (pictured), have filed a petition urging Governor Henry McMaster to grant him clemency.
Here's what his attorneys released to the press:
"Without the Governor’s action, Khalil will be executed on Friday, September 20, 2024, for the 1997 murder of Irene Graves. Khalil, who was only 19 at the time of the crime, maintains his innocence. No physical or forensic evidence implicates him in Ms. Graves’s death. A surveillance video from the Speedway convenience store where she was shot shows two masked men who cannot be identified. The testimony used to obtain Khalil’s 1999 conviction was flawed, with at least one of his co-defendants incentivized by an undisclosed deal with the prosecution to take both the death penalty and a life sentence off the table in exchange for his testimony implicating Khalil.
The eleven white jurors and one Black juror who convicted Khalil in 1999 were instructed that they did not need to find that he had shot Ms. Graves in order to find him guilty; the Solicitor told them it was enough for them to decide simply that he was present in the Speedway when she was killed. The 2006 jury that imposed the death sentence to be carried out on Friday was not told that the bar for his conviction was so low.
Nor was Khalil’s 2006 jury aware of his extensive childhood trauma—from the abuse and neglect he suffered in his impoverished home to the physical and sexual violence he endured while incarcerated in a juvenile institution. Those experiences caused significant organic damage to Khalil’s young and developing brain, impairing his judgment and decision-making. Because Khalil’s youth and traumas prevented him from functioning as an adult, it is unjust to punish him as one.
The trial errors and weak and compromised evidence, combined with Khalil’s youth and organic brain damage, all weigh heavily in favor of clemency. Were his execution allowed to proceed, Khalil would be one of only a handful of people executed for a crime committed as a teenager, and the first and only person in South Carolina executed with no jury finding that he killed or intended to kill.
For all of these reasons, clemency is necessary and appropriate to prevent Khalil’s unjust execution."
