South Carolina ACLU asks court to allow interview of death row inmate before execution

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 22, 2024 / 11:45 am

As a South Carolina man awaits execution on death row, lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are asking a federal court to supersede prison policy and allow him to give media interviews to tell his story and make the case that his life should be spared.

Marion Bowman, 44, has sat on death row for more than two decades after being convicted for the 2001 murder of Kandee Martin — a 21-year-old woman whom he fatally shot over a monetary dispute when he was 20 years old. His execution has yet to be scheduled, but ACLU lawyers cautioned in a court filing that he “could be executed within weeks.”

Bowman is not seeking to be released from prison but is petitioning Gov. Henry McMaster for executive clemency to commute his sentence to life in prison. However, efforts to publicize his case have proved difficult because of policies at the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) that prevent him — and all other inmates — from giving certain types of interviews to the media.

According to official policy, “personal contact interviews … will be prohibited.” The prohibition includes in-person interviews, telephone interviews, and any interviews conducted with audio or visual recording. The only means by which the media can interview an inmate is through written correspondence.

Lawyers at the ACLU already have in-person access to Bowman and communicate with him over the phone and in video calls through their roles as legal counsel — but are barred from making visual and audio recordings to provide to the public. According to a court filing the ACLU desires to make audio recordings to develop a podcast and video recordings to be published. 

Although every state imposes restrictions on media access to inmates, South Carolina is “the only state that bans this category of speech outright,” South Carolina ACLU communications director Paul Bowers told CNA.

ACLU lawyers are asking the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina to rule that this practice violates the First Amendment because it “suppresses a substantial amount of protected speech.” They are also asking the court to expedite their request to block the department’s enforcement of the policy so they can interview Bowman and publish audio and visual of the interviews before he is executed by the state.

“A story about Marion Bowman — that is, a telling of his case and his life behind bars — is not functionally equivalent to a story by Marion Bowman,” the lawsuit argues. “A blog … about how great a loss it would be if South Carolina kills Marion Bowman is no substitute for the public hearing Marion’s own voice, his own laugh, his own anguish.”

South Carolina ACLU legal director Allen Chaney said in a statement that the restrictions on media interviews are also unfair to the public. 

“That South Carolina shrouds capital punishment in secrecy acknowledges a powerful truth: The death penalty is barbaric and unjust, and public scrutiny would end it for good,” Chaney said. “The public deserves a chance to meaningfully encounter the person being murdered on their behalf. We aim to give them that.”

Bowers told CNA that death row is “a very hidden away part of our state” and that “people don’t think very long and hard about the death penalty.” Yet, if given access to recorded interviews of someone who is awaiting execution, people would “have to be confronted with the faces and voices of the people we are preparing to kill.”

“We want people to think long and hard about what we’re preparing to do,” Bowers said. 

“Many [death row inmates] have committed heinous crimes, but [Bowman is] an example of someone who has changed his life to the extent that he can while incarcerated — someone who has sought redemption while on death row,” Bowers added. 

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, told CNA that Catholics in particular should oppose the death penalty and have a “responsibility to bring the inhumanity of the death penalty into the light.” She also criticized policies that prevent the public from learning about those who have been sentenced to death.

“Every effort to make secret the processes and procedures of capital punishment or to obscure the lived experiences of people on death row is a manifestation of this system of death,” Murphy said. “In the Gospel of Luke we are reminded, ‘Whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.’”

The Catholic Mobilizing Network works closely with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on efforts to oppose the death penalty and uphold the human dignity of people who are incarcerated.

When reached by CNA, a spokesperson for SCDC provided the department’s filing with the court, which defends the policy against First Amendment objections. 

The SCDC filing argues that other states impose restrictions on interviews and that journalists have “frequently interviewed inmates through the medium of written correspondence” in South Carolina.

It further asserts that the current policy is necessary to prevent security risks such as coded messages to criminal associates, to prevent a lack of sensitivity to crime victims, and to prevent a risk of institutional violence or the creation of celebrity status based on comments made by an inmate to the media, among other reasons.

The last execution in South Carolina occurred in May 2011, after which executions were put on hold because drug companies would not sell the products required for lethal injection. 

In 2021, however, South Carolina legalized executions by the electric chair and by firing squad. The state has also obtained the drugs necessary for lethal injection. After the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed last month that the death penalty — and the methods permitted in state law — are permissible by the state constitution, the SCDC expressed its intent to resume executions.