South Carolina has executed Marion Bowman Jr, a 44-year-old man who has maintained his innocence and in his final days became outspoken about the brutal conditions on death row.
The state, which has aggressively revived capital punishment after a 13-year pause, killed Bowman by lethal injection on Friday evening. It was be the first execution in the US of the new year.
Bowman and his attorneys had been fighting for the courts to intervene and revisit his conviction, citing ineffective trial counsel, claims of withheld evidence and concerns about the drawn-out method of killing.
But on Thursday, the US supreme court rejected his final appeal, as his family pleaded for his life to be spared.
Bowman is the third Black man to face execution in South Carolina in recent months, after the state was able to restock its supply of pentobarbital, a sedative. The cases have sparked protests over wrongful convictions, racial bias in capital punishment and the suffering caused by pentobarbital.
Bowman, imprisoned for more than half his life, was convicted of the 2001 killing of Kandee Martin, a 21-year-old childhood friend. He has said he did not kill her and that he refused to accept a plea deal because of his innocence. His attorneys said the evidence used against him was not reliable; the primary witnesses implicating him were two men also charged in the crime who received reduced sentences, and a third man who had pending charges in a separate case, which were subsequently dropped.
His lawyers also argued that the state withheld evidence casting doubt on the witnesses, including a memo outlining a claim that one of the witnesses confessed to the shooting.
Bowman’s legal team also argued in a recent petition that the lawyer who represented him at trial was “infected by his own racism”, writing that the lawyer pressured him to plead guilty because he was Black and his victim was white.
Attorneys for the state responded that Bowman was rehashing arguments already litigated, and the South Carolina supreme court called his appeal “meritless”. The US supreme court rejected his petition relating to his trial counsel’s “biases”. His attorneys also unsuccessfully challenged the state’s use of pentobarbital, noting that an anesthesiologist who reviewed the autopsy of the last man executed by South Carolina said it appeared he “consciously experienced feelings of drowning” and that it took 23 minutes to kill him.
In his prepared last words, Bowman said: “I did not kill Kandee Martin. I’m innocent of the crimes I’m here to die for … I know that Kandee’s family is in pain. They are justifiably angry. 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.”
He continued: “Living behind these walls has taught me a lot about loss and grief. It is never easy, but I have learned to find comfort in sharing good memories and funny stories. My suffering will soon be at an end, but I know it is the beginning for others. Please keep your head up, remember I love you, and please share your memories of me.”
On Wednesday, Lorraine Johnson, Bowman’s aunt, had pleaded for his sentence to be commuted, noting he was close with his daughter and deserved to build a relationship with his newborn granddaughter.
“Marion is someone who would do anything for someone else if he is able. He has been a kindhearted person ever since he was a child,” she said in a statement.
In an unusual move, Bowman opted not to request clemency from the state’s governor.
“He cannot in good conscience ask for a supposed mercy that would require him to spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit,” his lawyer, Lindsey Vann, said in a statement on Thursday. “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.”
No South Carolina governor has granted clemency to a capital defendant in the modern death penalty era. South Carolina’s governor has typically waited minutes before the execution to declare his decision, a tradition advocates have described as cruel.
The ACLU of South Carolina filed a lawsuit this week challenging a 2023 state law that keeps secret the identities of its suppliers of pentobarbital, a measure that allowed authorities to revive executions. Defendants are forced to choose how they will die – either lethal injection, firing squad or electrocution.
The execution comes as Donald Trump has pledged to vigorously pursue capital punishment at the federal level. Joe Biden commuted most federal defendants sentenced to death before stepping down, but his clemency action did not impact people on state death rows like Bowman.
In earlier conversations with his lawyer, which were relayed to the Guardian, Bowman spoke out about the “inhumane” treatment of people on death row placed on “execution watch”. In September, when the state said he was in line to be killed, he was moved to a solitary cell, with nearly 24/7 isolation, cut off from the men on death row who have become his family over decades. He could touch both walls at the same time, lost access to many of his possessions, and had to wear full-body shackles and be led around with a dog leash anytime he left his cell.
“These people have helped me survive this – people who never would’ve gotten together on the outside, who are so different, but still have so much humanity in common,” Bowman said of the others on death row, separated from him in his final months.
A prison spokesperson earlier declined to comment on the conditions.
Boyd Young, one of Bowman’s lawyers and a close friend of 15 years, said on Thursday that Bowman was spending his final days writing goodbye letters and preparing to donate his possessions to other men on death row, including a chess set. He got his “last meal” on Wednesday, including fried oysters, shrimp and chicken, juice, chocolate cake and banana pudding – foods he likely hasn’t had for decades. He ate it alone.
He also got an opportunity to hold his granddaughter for the first time.
“He’s way more than a client. He’s a family member,” Young said, noting that Bowman built relationships with his wife and children, exchanging drawings and letters over the years. “Killing him in no way makes the world a better place.”
In Bowman’s final letter to Young, he said: “I never wanted to be writing this to you. It crushes my heart to do so. Man I LOVE YOU Brother! [From] the moment I met you, you was in my corner … Thank you [for] bringing so many people in [to] meet me and eventually grow to love me too.” Bowman expressed gratitude to Young for making him an uncle to his children and taking him on “trips around the world” through the photos and postcards his family sent.
Bowman’s letter concluded: “I’m stopping now before everything in me breaks. I love you for life, brother!”
Bowman also wrote poetry while incarcerated and released a final poem just before his death titled Last Breath or Sigh.
It said, in part:
I’ve felt love with every breath I’ve taken.
I hope I’ve given a good return on that investment.
So, when I’ve breathed my last gasp,
The good Lord just took back what He gave me as breath.
In his final words before execution, Bowman thanked his family and supporters and said of the other men on death row: “None of these guys that I have gotten to know and grown to love are the people that they were when they had their moment that cost them everything … We all pray for grace and forgiveness, but the outside world is stuck with images of monsters perpetrated by the state, while our real voices are silenced. We are not what the state labels us to be. We are kind, caring, loving people, and it’s a shame the world can’t see that.”
English (US)