A South Carolina prisoner who has been on death row for more than half his life has just a few hours until his execution but his lawyers have a big concern - his weight. Marion Bowman Jr., 44, was convicted for the murder of his longtime friend Kandee Martin, whose bullet-ridden body was discovered burned in the trunk of her car in 2001. Bowman, who has maintained his innocence is scheduled to be executed via lethal injection on Friday. In an appeal to the state Supreme Court, Bowman's lawyers raised a concern about his weight. An anaesthesiologist said he fears South Carolina's secret lethal injection protocols don't take into account that the inmate is listed as 389 pounds, reports MSN.com. It can be difficult to get an IV into a blood vessel and determine the dose of the drugs needed in people with obesity. Lawyers for the state argued that thousands of obese people get IVs for surgery and other procedures every day. Bowman's appeal also claimed his trial lawyer was inadequately prepared and had too much sympathy for the victim because she was white. His current lawyers claimed the trial lawyer called the victim "a little girl" while referring to Bowman as a man despite him being a year younger than Kandee when she was murdered.
The appeal said the trial attorney urged Bowman to plead guilty despite his denying that he'd killed Kandee because he thought it would be tough to get a jury sympathetic toward a Black defendant and a plea would keep him off death row. “His trial attorney because of his own prejudices didn’t listen to Marion or his views on his own defense,” appeal attorney Lindsey Vann said. Bowman's current lawyers argued that he was convicted based on the words of friends and family members who testified against him in exchange for deals or having charges dropped by prosecutors. The Supreme Court rejected Bowman's appeal on Thursday, calling it "meritless". Bowman will become the third inmate to be executed by South Carolina since September. The last two inmates were also Black. It comes as the state goes through a backlog of prisoners who exhausted their appeals during a 13-year pause on executions issued in part because officials could not obtain lethal injection drugs. South Carolina lifted the pause after passing a shield law that allowed the supplier of the drug used to kill inmates to stay secret and prison officials were able to find a compounding pharmacy willing to sell it. The Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions in July and Freddie Owens was put to death on September 20. Richard Moore was executed on November 1
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