South Carolina set to carry out its first execution in 13 years after securing medication needed for lethal injection

South Carolina is set on Friday to execute Freddie Owens, who would become the first death row inmate to die at the hands of the state in 13 years, for killing a convenience store clerk during a 1997 robbery.

South Carolina plans to move forward Friday with the execution of Freddie Owens, an inmate convicted in the 1997 killing of a convenience store clerk who would become the first person on death row to die at the hands of the state in 13 years. Owens, 46, is scheduled to be put to death for the killing of Irene Graves, according to the state’s Department of Corrections. The state’s supreme court on Thursday again declined to halt the execution. Owen’s attorneys filed for a stay of execution with the Supreme Court of the United States on Friday, hours before his scheduled execution, court documents show. The inmate requested an emergency injunction in part because the violation of due process his attorneys said occurred when South Carolina’s Department of Corrections and Gov. Henry McMaster did not provide Owens with basic information about the lethal injection drugs and the execution team’s qualifications, according to the emergency motion. Owens has also requested clemency from McMaster, according to the Associated Press. If McMaster chooses not to grant it on Friday and if the US Supreme Court rejects the appeal, Owens’ state-mandated death will mark the state’s first by lethal injection since it regained access to the medication required to perform the procedure following nearly a decade of lethal injection supply issues. Graves, a 41-year-old mother of three children, was working an overnight shift at a store in Greenville on November 1, 1997, when she was shot and killed during a robbery, CNN affiliate WHNS reported.