"Would you prefer chicken, fish, or perhaps the vegetarian platter?" Freddie Eugene Owens may be facing some choices similar to what you could be offered at one of those all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants in South Carolina next month. But instead of dinner items, Owens will need to choose between lethal injection, a firing squad, or the electric chair. You see, on September 20th, Owens is scheduled to be the first person in South Carolina to be executed in more than a dozen years. Due to process complications that have held up other executions in the past, the state is attempting to offer a variety of terminal services so that the job gets done this time without the courts or other entities intervening. If Owens fails to make a choice, South Carolina will default to the electric chair. Looking at his criminal history, it's hard to muster a lot of sympathy for him. (NY Post)

A South Carolina inmate on death row will have a choice of lethal injection, electrocution or a firing squad for his scheduled September execution — the state’s first in 13 years.

Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, is set to be put to death on Sept. 20 for the 1997 murder of store clerk Irene Graves during a string of Halloween-night robberies in Greenville, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced Friday.

Owens has been given 14 days to choose his preferred method of execution or the state will use the electric chair.

Before getting to the procedural issues that are unfolding, it's worth remembering how Freddie Owens wound up in this situation. There is no need to use the word "allegedly" when discussing his crimes. He has already been convicted of murdering a store clerk during a Halloween spree of robberies and violence in 1997. Further, he has admitted to murdering one of his cellmates in prison by driving a knife into his eyes and setting him on fire. To put it charitably, he's not the sort of person you would want to include on your list of guests for a dinner party.

As to why this buffet selection of ways to die is now on the menu, South Carolina has been running into problems arranging lethal injection executions as have several other states. That's because some liberal-leaning pharmaceutical companies have been trying to score social justice points by refusing to sell them the drugs required to get the job done properly. This is something that is long overdue for the Justice Department to look into. These companies should not have the option of refusing service to authorized customers seeking to purchase their products provided the customer is entitled to take possession of them for legal purposes. Capital punishment is legal in South Carolina. That should have been the end of the debate.

So if they run into the same political blockades with Freddie Owens, South Carolina is keeping its legal options open by offering the firing squad or "Old Sparky" as alternatives. The electric chair still manages to finish the job in nearly all cases, but the results can wind up being rather messy and quite unpleasant for the witnesses to observe. There have also been instances where the executioner was forced to throw the switch a second time because even when working with high voltage, things can sometimes go wrong. 

I realize that Freddie Owens probably isn't interested in any advice from the likes of me, but if I were in a position to whisper in his ear, I would suggest that he would probably be better off going with the firing squad. Getting hit simultaneously by multiple high-caliber rounds to the heart at relatively close range sounds like a very nearly foolproof method and you shouldn't linger long. My only issue with the South Carolina firing squad (which they've never used up until now though it's been authorized for decades) is that they only use three rifles. That just seems to increase your margin for error if one of them gets cold feet or has shakey hands. Other states use as many as seven. Out of a group of that size, you're bound to wind up with more lethal shots than should ever be required. But hey... if Owens wants to try his luck with "Old Sparky," who are we to begrudge him the choice? Barring any more meddling from the courts, it will be the last choice he gets to make for himself prior to shuffling off this mortal coil.