COLUMBIA – As the South Carolina Department of Corrections prepares to resume executing people for the first time since 2011, the ACLU of South Carolina has filed an urgent motion to allow the publication of an interview with a man incarcerated on death row.
In the latest filing before the U.S. District Court of South Carolina on Aug. 13, the ACLU-SC filed a Motion for Expedited Consideration of Preliminary Injunction. We are asking the court to act quickly before it is too late to tell the story of Marion Bowman Jr., a man who has been sentenced to death.
“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. The public deserves a chance to meaningfully encounter the person being murdered on their behalf. We aim to give them that,” said ACLU-SC Legal Director Allen Chaney.
In the ongoing federal court case ACLU-SC v. Stirling, initially filed in February 2024, we are challenging the state prison system’s total ban on news media interviews with incarcerated people — the most draconian prison press policy in the country. As part of the lawsuit, we are seeking to publish an interview with Mr. Bowman.
That case became more urgent on July 31, when the S.C. Supreme Court ruled to allow the state to execute incarcerated people by electrocution, firing squad, or lethal injection. Mr. Bowman is preparing to petition the governor to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment. The public has both a vital interest and a First Amendment right to hear his appeal.
For more information and documents related to this ongoing case, see the case page ACLU-SC v. Stirling and the press release from the date of filing.
