COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Richard Moore, who will be executed by lethal injection Friday in South Carolina for the fatal 1999 shooting of a store clerk, has one last chance to spare his life.
Moore’s lawyers have asked Republican Gov. Henry McMaster for clemency, which no South Carolina governor has granted in the state’s previous 44 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Governors in 24 other states have done so.
Two jurors who sentenced Moore to death in 2001 also sent letters asking McMaster to commute his sentence to life without parole. They are joined by a former state prison warden, Moore’s judge, his son and daughter, a half-dozen childhood friends and several preachers.
They all say Moore, 59, is a changed man who loves God, dotes on his new grandchildren as best he can, helps guards keep the peace and mentors other inmates after his addiction to drugs clouded his judgment and led to the gunfight in which James According to the clemency petition, Mahoney was killed.
Moore is expected to die at a Columbia jail at 6 p.m. He has had two execution dates postponed as the state resolved issues that led to a 13-year pause in the death penalty, including companies’ refusal to sell lethal injection drugs to the state, a hurdle that was resolved by passing a secrecy law.
Moore would be the second inmate to be executed in South Carolina since executions resumed. Four others have no further appeal and the state appears prepared to execute them at five-week intervals throughout the spring. If Moore dies Friday, there would be 30 people left on death row.
The governor said he is carefully reviewing everything Moore’s attorneys have sent and, as usual, will wait until minutes before the execution begins to announce his decision once he hears by phone that all appeals have been resolved.
“Clemency is a matter of grace, a matter of mercy. There is no standard. There is no real law on it,” McMaster told reporters Thursday.
In an interview for a video accompanying his clemency petition, Moore expressed regret over Mahoney’s murder.
“This is definitely a part of my life that I would like to change. I took a life. I took someone’s life. I have broken the family of the deceased,” Moore said. “I pray for the forgiveness of that particular family.”
Prosecutors and Mahoney’s relatives did not speak publicly in the weeks leading up to the execution. In the past, family members have said they have suffered deeply and that justice is being served.
Moore’s attorneys say his original attorneys failed to carefully analyze the crime scene and left unchallenged prosecutors’ claim that Moore, who entered the store unarmed, shot a customer and that his intent from the start was robbery.
According to their story, the clerk pulled a gun on Moore after the two argued because he was 12 cents short of what he wanted to buy.
Moore said he wrestled the gun from Mahoney’s hand and the clerk pulled a second gun. Moore was shot in the arm and returned fire, hitting Mahoney in the chest. Moore then went behind the counter and stole approximately $1,400.
No one else on South Carolina’s death row began their crime unarmed and without intent to kill, Moore’s current attorneys say.
Jon Ozmint, a former prosecutor who served as director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections from 2003 to 2011 and who has lent his voice to those seeking clemency, said Moore’s case is not the worst crime that would normally be committed . give rise to a death penalty case.
There are plenty of people who were not sentenced to death but committed far more heinous crimes, Ozmint said, citing the example of Todd Kohlhepp, who was given a life sentence after pleading guilty to the murders of seven people, including a woman whom he had raped and tortured for days. .
Lawyers for Moore, who is black, also say his trial was not fair. There were no African Americans on the jury, even though 20% of Spartanburg County residents were black.
Moore, a born-again Christian, can continue to mentor and positively influence fellow inmates if his sentence is reduced to life without parole, Ozmint said.
“He wants to continue his work and have a positive impact on everyone around him that he can reach,” Ozmint said in the clemency video. “I hope Governor McMaster will give Richard the rest of his life to invest in others.”
Moore’s son and daughter said he remained involved in their lives. He once asked them about school work and gave advice in letters. He now has grandchildren whom he sees via video calls. Several letter writers mentioned the harm they would experience if Moore were removed from their lives.
“Even though my father has been gone, that still doesn’t stop him from having a big impact on my life, a positive impact,” said Alexandria Moore, who joined the Air Force with her father’s encouragement.
She said her five-year-old daughter asked, “Is that Pa Pa?” when the phone rings at their home on a military base in Spain.
“He’s a wonderful man, and I want her to know her grandfather for the man he is,” she said.
