South Carolina executes Jeffrey Motts

Jeffrey Motts

Jeffrey Motts was executed Friday. He died at 6:17 p.m.

South Carolina on Friday executed a man who strangled his cellmate, using a new combination of lethal injection drugs for the 2st time.

Jeffrey Motts, 36, was declared dead at 6:17 p.m. He was given the sedative pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental as part of the lethal 3 drug combination because federal agents seized the state's supply as part of a nationwide investigation into whether prisons obtained the drugs legally from England.

Motts was sentenced to death for killing his cellmate at a state prison in Greenville County in 2005. He was already serving a life sentence for killing 2 elderly people during a Spartanburg County robbery in 1995.

Motts, strapped to a gurney in a green jumpsuit, never looked at the witnesses. It took him about 90 seconds to stop breathing after the lethal drugs began flowing through an IV. He took several heavy breaths, blinked and his head jerked slightly for about a minute before his breaths became shallow and eventually stopped.

His attorney read a last statement before he died: "To my mom and grandma, happy Mother's Day. I know this is a sad one but let us remember the good times. I am finally free and at peace in heaven."

He apologized to his victims' families, his own family and anyone he hurt along the way.

Motts abandoned all his appeals and volunteered for the death chamber

He confessed to strangling Charles "Chuck" Martin just hours after telling guards at Perry Correctional Institution in Greenville County where to find his body in a prison common area.

During that confession, he also asked investigators to tell prosecutors he was serving two life sentences and a third wasn't going to make a difference.

He told his attorneys he wanted to die, saying he only went to trial so his parents wouldn't think he was giving up. His push to enter the death chamber wavered briefly when his lawyers suggested he might be able to donate a kidney to his ailing sister, but he reaffirmed his wish to die after the 2 turned out not to be a match.

Motts and Martin had ended up in the same cell together in November 2005 despite asking to be kept apart because of a dispute over a stolen radio and a shank found in another inmate's cell.

Motts was already serving a life sentence for a 1995 double murder in Spartanburg County in the northwest part of the state. He tied up 79-year-old Clyde Camby and shot him at close range in the cheek at a home in Pacolet, then shot his 73-year-old great-aunt

Etta Osteen was shot in the back as she tried to get away, investigators said.

Camby was found with his pockets turned inside out. Authorities said Motts killed the pair to get money to buy crack.

He mentioned his drug addiction in his last statement.

"I want to warn kids of the dangers of drugs. I was the child everyone wanted their children around until I got on drugs. Drugs will destroy your life."

Executions have been carried out at the Broad River Correctional Institution since 1990.

Since 1997, however, death row has been at Lieber Correctional Institution near Ridgeville in the Lowcountry.

Once inmates are moved to the capital punishment facility they can no longer have visits with their families.

They are only allowed visits from their attorneys and spiritual advisors.

The last meal is served some time between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. 

3 drugs are used for the lethal injection:

Pentobarbital puts the inmate to sleep

Pavulon stops breathing

Potassium Chloride stops the heart

The Department of Corrections separated death row from the capital punishment facility so the correctional officers who deal with death row inmates ever day for years are not the same ones who carry out the execution.

Motts becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in South Carolina and the 43rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1985.

Motts becomes the 14th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1248th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: Associated Press, Rick Halperin, May 6, 2011

Related article: "Lundbeck drugs allow first South Carolina execution for 2 years", Reprieve, May 6, 2011

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