The state Supreme Court set the order in which the men would be executed with the earliest for a Spartanburg man in October and into March for others

South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death Friday as the state restarted executions after an unintended 13-year pause.

South Carolina executes first death row inmate in 13 years - Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, previously known as Freddie Owens, died by lethal injection at the Broad River Correctional Institution in C

Death row inmates in five states, not including Florida, are scheduled to be put to death in the coming week defying a decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. Executions are planned in Alabama,

In South Carolina, the governor has the lone ability to grant clemency and reduce a death sentence to life in prison. However, no governor has done that in the state’s 43 executions since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections could potentially execute one death row inmate every 35 days — or every five weeks — as the state resumes executions on Sept. 20 after a 13-year pause in carrying out the death penalty.

The unusually high number of executions defies a yearslong trend of decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S.

Death row inmates in five states are scheduled to be put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number of executions that defies a yearslong trend of decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the U.

"Two on a single day is unusual, and four on two days in the same week is also very unusual," said Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center.