South Carolina complete first execution in the US in 2025

As reported in this AP piece, “South Carolina put a third inmate to death in four months Friday as it goes through a backlog of prisoners who exhausted their appeals while the state couldn’t find lethal injection drugs.” Here is more:

Marion Bowman Jr. was executed at 6:27 p.m. Bowman, 44, was convicted of murder in the shooting death of a friend whose burned body was found in the trunk of a car. Bowman maintained his innocence since his arrest. His lawyers said he was convicted on the word of several friends and relatives who received deals or had charges dropped by prosecutors in exchange for their testimony….

In the statement detailing his final words, Bowman said he did not kill 21-year-old Kandee Martin. “I know that Kandee’s family is in pain, they are justifiably angry,” Bowman said. “If my death brings them some relief and ability to focus on the good times and funny stories, then I guess it will have served a purpose. I hope they find peace.”…

Bowman, who has been on death row more than half his life, was offered a plea deal for a life sentence but went to trial because he said he was not guilty.

Friday’s execution was the third in South Carolina since September as the state ended a 13-year pause in executions caused in part because officials couldn’t obtain lethal injection drugs. The General Assembly passed a shield law, and prison officials were able to find a compounding pharmacy willing to make the pentobarbital if its identity wasn’t made public.

Bowman’s death marks the first execution in the U.S. in 2025. Twenty-five executions were carried out in the country last year.

Bowman did not ask Gov. Henry McMaster for clemency, but McMaster’s office released a letter denying clemency anyway. His lawyer, Lindsey Vann, said Bowman didn’t want to spend more decades in prison for a crime he did not commit. “After more than two decades of battling a broken system that has failed him at every turn, Marion’s decision is a powerful refusal to legitimize an unjust process that has already stolen so much of his life,” Vann said in a statement Thursday.

No governor in the previous 45 executions in South Carolina since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 has given mercy and reduced a death sentence to life in prison without parole.

Bowman was convicted in Dorchester County in 2002 of murder in the killing of 21-year-old Kandee Martin in 2001. A number of friends and family members testified against him as part of plea deals. One friend said Bowman was angry because Martin owed him money. A second testified Bowman thought Martin was wearing a recording device to get him arrested on a charge. Bowman said he sold drugs to Martin, who was a friend of his for years and sometimes she would pay with sex, but he denied killing her.

Bowman is Black like the other two inmates executed since the pause ended. The final appeal from his lawyers said his trial attorney had too much sympathy for his white victim. The South Carolina Supreme Court called the argument meritless.