“Condemned Inmate Expresses Concern Over South Carolina’s Requirement for Two Lethal Injection Doses in Final Execution”

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Lawyers for the inmate facing execution in South Carolina are seeking a halt to the process to gather more details about the drug used for lethal injection. This request comes after the previous prisoner required two large doses of the sedative, administered 11 minutes apart during the execution.

A review of the autopsy records of Richard Moore, who was executed on November 1, revealed concerning information. An anesthesiologist noted that fluid present in the lungs suggests Moore may have consciously experienced sensations of suffocation and drowning during the 23-minute process of his death.

In contrast, another anesthesiologist, engaged by the state, stated that finding fluid in the lungs of prisoners who have undergone lethal injection is not uncommon. This expert indicated that witness testimonies and other evidence do not support the notion that Moore remained conscious for more than half a minute following the initial administration of pentobarbital.

Prison officials have not said why Moore needed a second massive dose of the sedative. A shield law keeps private the supplier and manufacturer of the drug, the people who carry out the execution and the method they use.

The state says that if Marion Bowman Jr. is so worried about dying by lethal injection on Jan. 31, it also offers a choice of the electric chair or death by a firing squad. “If Bowman’s concerns about lethal injection were genuine, he could have elected another method,” attorneys for the state wrote in court papers.

Bowman is scheduled to die Jan. 31. He was convicted of murder in the shooting of a friend whose burned body was found in the trunk of her burned-out car in Dorchester County in 2001. Much of the evidence against Bowman at his trial came from friends and family members who testified against him as part of plea deals.

Bowman has insisted he did not kill 21-year-old Kandee Martin. He did not testify at his trial, but he released a statement last month through his lawyer with his story about what happened around the time Martin was killed.

What could be Bowman’s final attempt to postpone his death sentence is in the federal lawsuit over the lethal injection drug. His lawyers want more information than the state gives, which is a sworn statement from the prison director that state agents tested the drug, found it was pure and stable pentobarbital and the single dose given should result in death.

Included in court papers asking for the delay are a summary of autopsy results for Moore. The other South Carolina inmate killed in 2024, Freddie Owens, asked that an autopsy not be performed for religious reasons.

The state told the pathologist doing Moore’s autopsy that he was given pentobarbital through an IV twice — once as the execution started and again 11 minutes later when he was killed Nov. 1.

South Carolina doesn’t release its protocol for lethal injection, but said its methods are similar to other states that use one dose of pentobarbital. In Georgia and Tennessee, only one 5 gram dose of the drug is scheduled for the start of the execution.

That should be a high enough dose to stop anyone’s breathing within a minute with no need for a second dose, said Dr. David B. Waisel, an anesthesiologist who has worked as a professor at Harvard and Yale universities.

Fluid was also found in Moore’s lungs and airway. Waisel wrote it is likely Moore felt feelings of drowning and suffocation for long periods before his death.

Last week the federal government announced it was rescinding its protocol for executions with pentobarbital after a government review raised concerns about the potential for “unnecessary pain and suffering.” But President Donald Trump signed an executive order shortly after taking office Monday that directs federal officials to take all steps to make sure executions are carried out.

In their response, lawyers for the governor’s office and prison system had their own anesthesiologist review the records.

All evidence from the descriptions of Moore’s death by witnesses indicates his breathing stopped in two or three minutes and he was unconscious, said Dr. Joseph F. Antognini, who taught anesthesiology at the University of California, Davis.

“Before becoming unconscious, the individual would not feel the sensations of pain, suffocation or air hunger,” Antognini wrote.

After that, the heart will have periodic, irregular beats for as long as 20 minutes before it stops. That cardiac activity that could be detected on a heart monitor might have led to the second dose of pentobarbital, Antognini said.

The state’s lawyers also pointed out Owens and Moore each had an attorney witness their deaths, and “neither lawyer ever claimed that either man showed any signs of pain during his execution.”

Bowman’s lawyers also want more time to study whether South Carolina’s lethal injection protocols take into account Bowman’s weight, listed as 389 pounds (176 kilograms) in prison records. It can be difficult to properly get an IV into a blood vessel and determine the dose of the drugs needed in people with obesity.

Antognini agreed it can be difficult. But he wrote “thousands of obese patients have surgery every day after the successful placement of an intravenous catheter.”