In South Carolina, the governor has the lone ability to grant clemency and reduce a death sentence to life in prison. However, no governor has done that in the state's 43 executions since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976.

Attorneys for Owens had filed an emergency motion with South Carolina's high court to reconsider stopping his death based on an affidavit filed by Owens' co-defendant, Steven Golden, stating that Owens did not shoot Graves during the robbery at the Speedway convenience store.

The co-defendant of a man scheduled to die by lethal injection on Friday has reportedly filed a statement saying that he was pressured to name him as the suspect in order to avoid being executed by the state.

The state is scheduled to execute Freddie Owens on Sept. 20, which will be South Carolina’s first execution carried out since 2011.

A deeply troubled South Carolina inmate scarred by a traumatic childhood wrote letters on death row that at times threaten the ones he loves in chilling terms and at others show a vulnerable man who describes himself as being "fragile as a child.

Freddie Owens' execution appears to be moving forward despite a sworn statement from the man who testified against him that Owens wasn't even at the crime scene.