South Carolina has scheduled Richard Moore’s execution for Friday evening after the United States Supreme Court rejected his final appeal.
Moore’s lawyers have also written to Governor Henry McMaster, requesting clemency.
The judge and two jurors from Moore’s original trial have signed a petition asking McMaster to commute his sentence to life in prison.
“The trial judge who ultimately imposed the death sentence after the jury made their decision that the death penalty was appropriate,” Moore’s lawyer Lindsey Vann said in an interview with WYFF TV in Greenville, S.C.
“He has spent years reflecting on this case. and he has discovered that Richard’s case is unique among all death penalty cases in South Carolina. And as a result of those years of reflection and thinking on this case, he has asked the governor to commute Richard’s sentence.”
We anticipate that McMaster, a Republican, will wait until the last minute to make his selection.
The Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia will execute Moore for the 1999 killing of convenience store clerk James Mahoney during a robbery in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
If the sentence is carried out, Moore will be the second inmate executed in South Carolina in 13 years.
The state executed Freddie Owens in September, the first execution in South Carolina in nearly a decade.
South Carolina halted executions in 2011 due to a shortage of lethal injection medicines.
Originally scheduled for execution in 2022, Moore opted for death by firing squad over the electric chair.
Supporters and lawyers of the accused have contended that his case fails to meet the criteria for capital murder.
According to prosecutors, Moore did not show any remorse as he left the scene of the robbery with $1,400 in cash without calling for help.
“There’s no question in my mind that this wouldn’t have been a death penalty case in most counties. There might’ve been some other solicitors that would’ve T’d it up and tried it that way but wouldn’t have been successful,” former South Carolina Department of Corrections Director John Ozmint told the Greenville News in an interview.
Ozmint, having witnessed Moore’s transformation over the years, has personally signed the petition advocating for his clemency.
“I hope that Governor McMaster will give Richard the rest of his life to continue to pour into the lives of others.”
