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.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
52 points

still bloodthirsty that they refuse that execution even though new information have come to light.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-38 points

Anybody can say anything. They held a trial. Testimonies were given under oath. Other witnesses testified.

You can’t throw out every conviction after-the-fact because somebody says something new. It would be trivial to overturn sentences and lock up the courts for decades.

permalink
report
parent
reply
43 points
*

Guess innocence isn’t as important as the death penalty. They should have known that someone lied under oath at the time, right?

Or maybe they could not execute him and take the time to find out if the new information is true or not.

permalink
report
parent
reply
40 points
*

Or you know… just don’t execute people ever because they can’t ever be 100% sure.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-20 points

Guess innocence isn’t as important as the death penalty. They should have known that someone lied under oath at the time, right?

Don’t be obtuse. Multiple lines of evidence were presented to convince 12 people that he was guilty.

Guess we should just release everybody from prison because we can never know with 100% certainty that anyone ever did anything.

permalink
report
parent
reply
32 points
*

they fucking LIED UNDER OATH. The entire case needs to be reevaluated.

permalink
report
parent
reply
20 points

This is the correct answer. It sounds like they’re admitting to perjury. So the case needs to be re-evaluated or set for a mistrial if it was a critical witness testimony that’s been proven to be lying under oath.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-12 points

Or are they lying now? You can’t know. Do you reevaluate every case when somebody says something other than their sworn testimony?

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

Do you think that if the prosecution made a secret deal with the witness, a deal that the jury didn’t know about, would that make another trial or reexamination of evidence necessary? Because that’s what happened.

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Who gives a shit if someone gave an oath beforehand? Do you really think that’s going to stop a liar from lying?

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

It depends. Were they touching a magic book?

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

Anybody can say anything.

Anybody can say anything to convict someone of a crime.
But, once the convenience of finding someone guilty has been done, it doesn’t matter what anybody says.

In the end, the human world works on fabricating answers more than it does on finding more truthful ones.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

One of these outcomes is irreversible. Preventing that outcome should take precedence over any other factor in the case.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Testimony should not be considered proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Anyone who’s lived among humans knows that human speech often differs from the truth.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

This is a person’s life asshole

permalink
report
parent
reply
-3 points

This is a person’s life asshole

What’s a life asshole? How many life assholes does this person have?

permalink
report
parent
reply

News

!news@lemmy.world

Create post

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

Community stats

  • 14K

    Monthly active users

  • 8.9K

    Posts

  • 161K

    Comments