Stop the Execution of Marion Bowman in South Carolina

Marion Bowman will be the third person in South Carolina to face the death chamber since the state restarted executions in September 2024. Bowman, 44, is scheduled for execution on January 31st for the 2001 murder of 21-year-old Kandee Martin.

Bowman maintains that he didn’t kill Martin, and states that his only involvement was hearing his cousin, James Gadson, confess to the crime. His attorneys repeatedly offered him plea deals, pointing out that he could avoid the death penalty if he signed on, but Bowman refused to admit to a crime he says he did not commit.

Bowman said Martin bought crack from him, adding he’d started dealing because he “could never make ends meet,” even when working manual labor jobs. “I have done some things in life I regret,” Bowman wrote in a statement. “I regret the role I had in dealing to Kandee and know that her addiction probably led to her death. But I did not do this.”

In December 2024, Bowman's attorneys argued with the state’s high court that issues with his original trial in 2002 cast doubt on the conviction, or at least on Bowman’s death sentence. Prosecutors’ arguments largely hinged on testimony by three witnesses. But the solicitor’s office didn’t give the defense team evidence that could have discredited two of those witnesses, one of which was the alleged confession by Gadson, who was the only other eyewitness to the shooting.

Bowman’s own attorney during his trial refused to present certain evidence, for reasons his current attorneys claimed had to do with his race. The attorney “was infected by his own racism to the extent that he did not believe his Black client and did not want to present credible evidence of Martin’s drug addiction, history of pawning personal items for drugs, and prostituting for drugs that counsel viewed as degrading and slandering the ‘little white girl’ victim or pitting the white girl against the ‘Black man’ accused of killing her,” the petition reads.

“Allowing this execution to proceed despite significant and unresolved doubt about Marion’s conviction and the serious flaws in the original trial is unconscionable,” said Lindsey Vann, an attorney with Justice360.

South Carolina should not carry out a sentence of the ultimate finality when such obvious questions of fairness remain. To proceed with the death penalty in this case would be profoundly unjust.  We ask our supporters to help stop this prevent this miscarriage of justice by signing an Action Network petition and let South Carolina governor Henry McMaster that the death penalty does not belong in South Carolina.

Link to petition --->>> Stop the Execution of Marion Bowman in South Carolina