South Carolina does not set a date for the next execution after requests for a holiday pause

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina's Supreme Court has not set a date for the state's next execution after lawyers for four inmates out of appeals asked them to postpone deaths until after Christmas and New Year's.

The justices typically issue notices on Fridays because it gives the maximum amount of time of 28 days to prepare for the execution which by law is to be carried out on the “fourth Friday after the receipt of such notice.”

The Supreme Court also promised in August to space out the executions in five week intervals to give prison staff and defense lawyers, who are often representing several condemned inmates, time to handle all the legal matters necessary. That includes making sure the lethal injection drugs as well as the electric chair and firing squad are ready and researching and filing last minute appeals.

South Carolina’s death chamber has a backlog because of a 13-year pause in executions in part because the state couldn’t obtain the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections until the General Assembly passed a law keeping the name of the provider secret.

Six inmates ran out of appeals during that time. Two have been executed and four are awaiting their fate.

The justices could have issued a death warrant this past Friday for Marion Bowman Jr. that would have been carried out on Dec. 6.

But the day passed with no word from the Supreme Court, including what the justices thought of the request from the inmates last Tuesday to take a break from executions until early January.

“Six consecutive executions with virtually no respite will take a substantial toll on all involved, particularly during a time of year that is so important to families,” the lawyers for the inmates wrote in court papers.

Attorneys for the state responded that prison officials were ready to keep to the original schedule and the state has conducted executions around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays before, including five between Dec. 4, 1998, and Jan. 8, 1999.

Bowman, 44, was convicted of murder in the shooting of friend 21-year-old Kandee Martin whose burned body was found in the trunk of her car in Dorchester County in 2001. Bowman has spent more than half his life on death row.

Bowman would be the third inmate executed since September after the state obtained the drug it needed to carry out the death sentence. Freddie Owens was put to death by lethal injection Sept. 20 and Richard Moore was executed on Nov. 1,

South Carolina was among the busiest states for executions back then, but that stopped once the state had trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs because of pharmaceutical companies’ concerns they would have to disclose they had sold the drugs to officials.

The state Legislature has since passed a law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers secret, and in July, the state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions.