South Carolina Inmate Seeks Execution Delay Over Lethal Injection Review

Race Day Live (Columbia, SC) – A South Carolina man scheduled to die by lethal injection has asked for a stay until additional information about the medicine that will kill him is acquired.

Marion Bowman Jr.’s execution is scheduled for January 31, but he is concerned that the drug used to kill another man in November required two big dosages given more than 11 minutes apart.

According to The Associated Press, an anesthesiologist reviewing Richard Moore’s autopsy records discovered fluid in his lungs, leading lawyers to believe he “consciously experienced feelings of drowning and suffocation during the 23 minutes that it took to bring about his death.” Moore was executed on November 1, 2024.

Prison officials have not explained why Moore required a second dose of the medicine, but they maintain the methods employed are similar to those used in other states.

Only one week ago, the federal government announced that it was rescinding the protocol for pentobarbital executions after a review found concerns about “unnecessary pain and suffering,” yet President Donald Trump has signed an executive order authorizing federal officials to carry out executions.

According to Dr. Joseph F. Antognini, an anesthesiologist who taught at the University of California, Davis, a second assessment ordered by the governor’s office and the prison system revealed that witnesses stated Moore’s respiration ceased in two or three minutes and he was unconscious.

“Before becoming unconscious, the individual would not feel the sensations of pain, suffocation or air hunger,” according to Antognini.

After after, the heart will have sporadic, erratic beats for up to 20 minutes before stopping, which might be noticed on a cardiac monitor and may have resulted in the second dose of pentobarbital, Antognini explained.

State lawyers also stated that Moore and another convict who died by lethal injection had a counsel witness their deaths, and “neither lawyer ever claimed that either man showed any signs of pain during his execution.”

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