Just days before inmate Freddie Owens is set to die by lethal injection in South Carolina, the friend whose testimony helped send Owens to prison is saying he lied to save himself from the death chamber.

Owens is set to die at 6 p.m. Friday at a Columbia prison for the killing of a Greenville convenience store clerk in 1997.

But Owens’ lawyers on Wednesday filed a sworn statement from his co-defendant Steven Golden late Wednesday to try to stop South Carolina from carrying out its first execution in more than a decade.

Prosecutors reiterated that several other witnesses testified that Owens told them he pulled the trigger. And the state Supreme Court refused to stop Owens’ execution last week after Golden, in a sworn statement, said that he had a secret deal with prosecutors that he never told the jury about.

    • @Soggy
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      119 hours ago

      That’s a very coercive relationship, I don’t think there’s an ethical way to implement “optional” suicide when the only alternative is the other party having total control over your life.

      • @[email protected]
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        116 hours ago

        Yes it is a very coercive relationship. It should only be used on people who have proven incapable of having non-coercive relationships with others.