Date set for the execution of Marion Bowman Jr., the third SC inmate scheduled to die
A date has been set for the execution of South Carolina death row inmate Marion Bowman Jr. His execution is set for Jan. 31 following a notice issued Friday by the South Carolina Supreme Court.
If the sentence is carried out, Bowman will be the third person to be executed in the state since last September, when South Carolina resumed executions following a 13-year pause when it was unable to secure the drugs needed to perform lethal injections.
The date of the execution is in line with a schedule set out by the court last summer when they issued an order clearing the way for the death penalty to resume.
Marion Bowman Jr. was convicted of shooting and killing Kandee Martin in the early morning hours of February 17, 2001. Bowman and his accomplices were planning to rob a house but came to believe that Martin was “wearing a wire,” according to court filings. Martin was shot in the head and her body was stuffed in the trunk of a car, which was then set on fire on Nursery Road in Dorchester County.
Bowman was convicted of murder and arson, third degree, and sentenced to death in 2002. But last-minute appeals have raised questions about that conviction. Bowman’s attorneys from Justice360, a Columbia-based nonprofit, and the Capital Habeas Unit for the Fourth Circuit Office of the Federal Public Defender have argued that prosecutors withheld key information at his trial.
In a statement, one of Bowman’s attorney, Lindsey Vann, said “Marion Bowman, Jr. has maintained his innocence since he was arrested at the young age of 20 and has spent more than half of his life on death row. His conviction was based on unreliable, incentivized testimony from biased witnesses who received reduced or dropped sentences in exchange for their cooperation.”
In a petition for a writ of Habeas Corpus submitted to the South Carolina Supreme Court, Bowman’s attorneys also argued that one of his lawyers at his original trial injected his own racist beliefs into the proceedings.
The lawyer, Norb Cummings, drew comparisons between Martin, who he called “a little white” girl and Bowman, who he described as a “Black man,” according to the filings.
At the time of the murder, Martin was 21 and a year older than Bowman.
An attorney who represented Bowman during one of his appeals described Cummings as an “abject racist.” The attorney wrote in an affidavit that while Cummings was testifying on the stand about his conduct in Bowman’s case, he turned to his former client and said, “Marion, what are you doing on Nursery Road at that time of the morning with a white female and African American males in Dorchester County? Really. This is 2001 but what good are you doing out there on a dirt road?”
This statement stunned the courtroom into silence, the attorney wrote in his affidavit.
Neither the South Carolina Supreme Court nor the U.S. Supreme Court have granted any stays in execution since the state resumed them last year.
Per South Carolina law, Bowman will be given the option to choose his method of execution, the options being death by firing squad, lethal injection or electrocution.
“Allowing this execution to proceed despite significant and unresolved doubt about Marion’s conviction and the serious flaws in the original trial is unconscionable,” Vann said.
This story was originally published January 3, 2025 at 11:56 AM.