Transcript of South Carolina carried out first death in 13 years

Some developing news tonight. South Carolina has executed a man that the key witness for the prosecution claims was innocent. Now, his last chance to live was denied when South Carolina's governor refused to grant clemency for the 46-year-old named Freddie Owens. Owens was sentenced to death over the 1997 murder of a gas station clerk, Irene Graves, during an armed robbery. She was shot in the head. But emergency motions filed by his lawyer claimed the co-defendant in the case admitted that he lied at trial as part of a secret deal. Despite this, South Carolina Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court rejected requests to stop that execution. Freddie Owens was killed by lethal injection. It was South Carolina's first execution in 13 years. Nbc news, a legal analyst, Danny Savalas, joins us now. Danny, there were a bunch of appeals filed for Owens throughout the years. Why did it take so long to uncover this new evidence that might have proven that he was innocent?

Well, that new evidence came from his co-defendant. So I guess the real question would be, why now did the co-defendant decide to execute an affidavit? And being a criminal defense attorney, it may surprise some folks to learn that these kinds of affidavits of witnesses recanting are actually not all that uncommon. Or I should say the mere fact that there was an affidavit saying he didn't do it, I didn't give truthful testimony at trial, it's not the first time that thing has happened. It It happens fairly, I wouldn't say often, but it does happen in courts. Don't look at those affidavits as automatic get-out-of-jail cards, and they don't automatically vacate a conviction or even stay in execution necessarily based on an affidavit like that. Even though I have to concede, this affidavit is very compelling, even though it was obtained very shortly before the execution.

The state of the Supreme Court, they still ruled that the appeal wasn't compelling enough to stop the execution. They wrote in its order that Owens still took part in the armed robbery and showed, quote, reckless disregard for human life. If evidence suggesting that he didn't actually commit the murder wasn't enough to stop the execution, could anything have stopped him?

I think in that passage, what the court was doing is making the distinction between evidence that he was the shooter or evidence that he was present at the scene but conducting the robbery. There's tons of case law on this issue. Whether someone who doesn't actually pull the trigger, are they to be treated exactly the same as the guy who's there? And generally speaking, accomplice liability answers that question, yes. But there were many different, very complex appeals here. And the bottom line on that affidavit, which really was just obtained very recently, it's the thing that isn't necessarily going to convince a court that an execution should be stayed. Although you can see that there are judges out there who might take a different tack. It's just it's luck of the draw who you get. In related news, his petition to the Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court, which is based on different grounds related to the means of execution. As I understand, this just came down. One justice would have voted to hear more. The rest, apparently, the remainder did not.

Kenny Sivalos, thank you.

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