Two days before South Carolina is set to execute a man on death row, the prosecution’s key witness has testified that he lied at trial and that the state is trying to put an innocent man to death.
Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, 46, is set to be killed by lethal injection on Friday, but his lawyers have filed emergency motions to halt the execution, citing new testimony that suggests Allah was wrongly convicted.
Allah, formerly known as Freddie Owens, was convicted in November 1997 of the armed robbery and murder of a convenience store cashier named Irene Graves. He was 19 at the time. Allah has long maintained his innocence in the murder of Graves, a 41-year-old mother of three who was shot in the head during the robbery.
There was no forensic evidence linking Allah to the shooting. The state’s primary evidence against Allah was the testimony of his friend and co-defendant, Steven Golden, who was also charged in the robbery and murder. Golden and Allah were supposed to stand trial together on murder charges, but since the case began in 1999, Golden pleaded guilty to murder, armed robbery, and criminal conspiracy and agreed to testify against Allah.
Surveillance footage from inside the store showed two masked men with guns, but they were not recognizable in the footage. Golden, who was 18 at the time of the robbery, said in court that he and Allah were the men in the footage, and that it was Allah who shot Graves.
But on Wednesday, two days before the scheduled execution, Golden came forward with an explosive statement, declaring that Allah “is not the person who shot Irene Graves” and “was not present” during the robbery. Golden said he had hidden the identity of the “real shooter” out of fear that “his accomplices would kill me,” and that he was coming forward now because he wanted “a clear conscience.”
“I don’t want to [Allah] “To be executed for something he didn’t do,” he wrote in the new oath.
Golden said he was high when police questioned him days after the robbery, and detectives claimed they knew Allah had been with him: “They said I might as well give a statement to [Allah]because he had already told his side of the story to everyone and they only wanted to hear my side of the story. I was afraid that if I didn’t give a statement I would get the death penalty.”
He claimed that prosecutors later promised him that he would not face the death penalty or life imprisonment if he testified against Allah, and he agreed.
In a motion filed with the court Wednesday night, Allah’s lawyers said: “If this court does not grant a stay, [Allah] will die for a crime he did not commit.”
In a response filed Thursday, the attorney general’s office suggested that Golden was not credible, saying he “has now provided an affidavit that conflicts with his many other affidavits over the past two decades.” Attorneys for the state also noted that people in Allah’s life at the time testified that Allah had confessed to them that he was the shooter.
Allah’s execution would be the first in South Carolina in 13 years and could mark the beginning of a series of swift executions in the coming months across the state. The state Supreme Court recently announced five additional executions it plans to schedule after Allah is killed, saying they would be carried out at least 35 days apart.
South Carolina had unofficially suspended executions in 2011 when pharmaceutical companies stopped supplying lethal injection drugs, fearing public pressure. But the state restocked its supply after passing a law last year that shielded the identities of suppliers.
Allah’s lawyers had filed a series of objections to his execution in recent weeks, before Golden’s new testimony. They noted that Allah was convicted of murder without a jury explicitly finding that he pulled the trigger. Prosecutors told jurors at his trial that they could convict him of murder only if they believed he was present during the robbery, and his lawyers have argued that the death penalty should not be applied to a defendant found guilty as an “accomplice.”
His lawyers have also said he has suffered serious violence and trauma throughout his life and has been diagnosed with brain damage.
If Allah were executed, he would be one of the youngest people sentenced to death in South Carolina in decades.
Allah’s lawyers have also filed a petition for clemency with the governor’s office to stop the execution.
The Rev. Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolina for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Thursday that it would be a “massive miscarriage of justice” if the execution goes ahead: “Khalil should not die for someone else’s wrongdoing. That is not accountability. That is not justice.”
