Civil rights group suing Department of Corrections over policy barring interviews with prisoners
By Skylar Laird
SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — A civil rights group argues a death row inmate should be allowed to give a recorded interview for publication before he is scheduled to die.
A motion this week is part of an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging a Department of Corrections policy that bars prisoners from giving interviews to reporters or members of other organizations. After the state Supreme Court ruled July 31 that death by electric chair and firing squad are constitutional, the question took on a newfound urgency, the state American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement Thursday, Aug. 15.
Marion Bowman, a 44-year-old death row inmate who has exhausted his appeals process and could be scheduled for execution, is one of the prisoners the group would like to interview for publication.
Department policy does not allow reporters or other groups to record or publish interviews, either over the phone or in person, out of concerns for the victims, so they don’t have to relive the ordeal, and so inmates don’t profit off their crimes through book contracts or other money-making deals, a department spokesperson has said previously.
The ACLU argues the public has the right to hear from the condemned prisoner.
“The public deserves a chance to meaningfully encounter the person being murdered on their behalf,” ACLU of South Carolina Legal Director Allen Chaney said in a statement. “We aim to give them that.”
Bowman was convicted in 2002 of fatally shooting a 21-year-old Orangeburg mother who owed him money, putting her body in her trunk and setting the vehicle on fire in rural Dorchester County. He is one of five men who have exhausted their normal appeals process and are not waiting for any court decisions, meaning they will likely be the first scheduled for execution.
Once a death warrant is issued, the prisons agency must schedule that inmate’s execution four Fridays from the date of the court order.
“Marion Bowman could be executed within weeks,” reads the motion, which was filed Tuesday, Aug. 13.
The court has not ordered any executions since issuing its decision upholding all three options in state law for carrying out a death sentence. The state’s last execution was in 2011. After that, the drugs the state used for lethal injections expired, and officials were unable to restock until September of last year, with the help of a new law protecting the privacy of the company providing the drugs.
Bowman is planning to ask the governor to commute his sentence from death to life in prison. Giving the public the ability to hear Bowman’s story in his own voice might influence that decision, the motion reads.
Without a judge’s decision, the ACLU’s “First Amendment rights to receive, record, and publish the speech of Marion Bowman in furtherance of his clemency petition will be permanently and incurably violated,” the motion reads.
Prisoners can write letters to anyone they want, including reporters. Department officials sometimes authorize tours of the state’s 21 prisons, but any photos or videos taken in the facilities must not show identifiable features, such as an inmate’s face or tattoos. The department sometimes allows interviews with inmates to talk about their accomplishments in prison, such as work and study programs, but those inmates can be identified by first name only.
The policy is meant to protect victims by keeping them from having to see the person who harmed them or their loved one on the news, department spokesperson Chrysti Shain said previously. Interviews about life in prison could also pose security risks by revealing sensitive information on how the prison is run or endangering inmates if they get famous from an interview, Shain said.
The ACLU is arguing the department’s policy violates inmates’ First Amendment rights. Although the group does not have a comprehensive list of other states’ policies, it called South Carolina’s policy “the most draconian prison press policy in the country” in a Thursday news release.
North Carolina, for instance, allows reporters to interview inmates as long as the reporter submits an official request and the inmate agrees. Georgia allows interviews during certain times as long as the inmate has had no recent disciplinary actions.
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
