South Carolina has executed a man on death row despite widespread calls to spare his life, including from the judge who originally sentenced him to death.
Richard Moore, 59, was killed by lethal injection on Friday evening, minutes after the state’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, announced he would not grant him clemency.
Moore was put to death after an extraordinary effort to save his life that included pleadings from the former director of the state corrections department, three jurors, the judge who presided over the case and a former state Supreme Court justice. Advocates argued he had become a role model behind bars. His two children, who remained close to him during his captivity, also begged for mercy.
The execution began at 6:01 p.m., the Associated Press reported. Moore’s breathing became shallow and stopped around 6:04 p.m., and he was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. Moore’s longtime attorney, who was in the room, couldn’t hold back tears.
A prison spokesperson shared Moore’s final words, including a message to the family members of the man he killed: “To the family of Mr. James Mahoney: I am deeply sorry for the pain and sorrow I have caused you all causes. To my children and granddaughters: I love you and am so proud of you. Thank you for the joy you have brought into my life. To all my family and friends, new and old, thank you for your love and support.”
Justice 360, the nonprofit that represented Moore, condemned the execution in a statement, saying it “underlines the flaws in South Carolina’s death penalty system”: “Who is executed versus who gets to spend their life in prison appears to be based on nothing more than chance, race or status. It is intolerable that our state metes out the ultimate punishment in such a haphazard manner… By killing Richard, the state has also created more victims. Richard’s children are now fatherless, and his grandchildren will have to grow up without their ‘Pa Pa’.”
Moore was the second person put to death this year in South Carolina, which recently revived executions and continues a rapid string of killings.
The case received widespread attention due to racial bias and doubts about the validity of Moore’s sentence.
An all-white jury convicted Moore, who is black, 25 years ago of armed robbery and the murder of Mahoney, a white supermarket clerk. Moore has said the killing was in self-defense.
On September 16, 1999, Moore was unarmed when he entered the store where Mahoney was standing at the counter. There was no footage, so the exact circumstances of the incident are unclear. Moore has said they got into an argument because he was short on change, prompting Mahoney to point a gun at him.
In their scuffle, both men were shot: Moore in the arm and Mahoney fatally in the chest. Moore took cash from the store.
It is undisputed that Moore was unarmed when he arrived. Mahoney was carrying a gun and there were two guns behind the counter. A store witness said he heard an argument and then saw Moore with his hands on the store clerk’s hands and Moore shooting in his direction. The witness wasn’t hit and said he played dead and didn’t see the rest of the encounter.
A forensic investigator hired by Moore’s attorneys reviewed evidence from the crime scene in 2017 and concluded that the first shot was fired while the two men were fighting over the gun.
Moore’s attorneys argued that regardless of the details of the gunfight, he should not be eligible for the death penalty, which would be reserved for the “worst of the worst” murders, since he came in unarmed and had no premeditated plans suspicion of armed robbery or murder. In 2022, state Supreme Court Justice Kaye Hearn agreed, writing in a dissent that the death sentence was “invalid,” “disproportionate” and a “relic of a bygone era.”
Hearn said it was “baffling” that prosecutors could not identify a comparable death penalty case involving a robbery that began unarmed, and noted that Spartanburg County, where Moore was prosecuted, had a history of “alarming” racial disparities in the death penalty ; All but one of the 21 cases between 1985 and 2001 involved white victims.
Moore’s team also filed a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that prosecutors unlawfully removed two qualified black jurors, but the court declined to halt the execution Thursday.
In a clemency video filed this week with Moore’s application, Jon Ozmint, former head of South Carolina’s corrections department, said he hoped the governor would “give Richard the rest of his life to continue pouring into the lives of others “. In an earlier letter, Ozmint said he was a supporter of the death penalty and had never recommended overturning a death sentence, but said staff “trusted” Moore as a “trustworthy and respected” man on death row.
“Commutation would positively impact hundreds of offenders who would be affected by Richard’s story of redemption and his positive example,” Ozmint wrote.
Gary Clary, the former circuit judge who imposed Moore’s death sentence, wrote to McMaster on Wednesday, saying that he had “reviewed the case of every person on death row in South Carolina” and that Moore’s case was “unique”: “After years of “For thought and consideration, I humbly ask that you grant clemency to Mr. Moore as an act of grace and mercy.”
Three jurors wrote that they supported commutation based on Moore’s rehabilitation. Thousands signed petitions to stop the execution.
Lindsey Vann, Moore’s 10-year attorney, said she was not aware of any other South Carolina case involving the modern death penalty in which a judge who imposed the sentence supported leniency. She said Thursday that Moore had tried to remain optimistic: “He’s grateful for all the support, so that brings him some hope … but there are obviously difficult conversations, talking to people for what may be the last time.”
Moore had remained close to his two children, who had visited him behind glass since their childhood. His daughter, Alexandria Moore, 31, remembers him teaching Spanish and doing puzzles through letters as a child and said he became a beloved grandfather to her two daughters. … Even with the physical distance, he is very much here and part of my girls’ lives and my life.
During his captivity, Moore had turned to religion, focused on painting and befriended pen pals, his lawyers said. His clemency video included a clip from an earlier interview, in which Moore expressed his regret: “This is definitely a part of my life that I would like to change, because I took a life… I broke the deceased’s family. I pray for the forgiveness of that particular family.”
Protesters gathered outside Columbia’s Broad River Prison, leading prayers and holding up signs reading “Save Richard Moore” and “Execute justice, not people.”
“South Carolina’s elected officials don’t care about the racism in the death penalty. They are more interested in using the system to win elections,” the Rev. Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolinaians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told the crowd after his execution.
South Carolina recently resumed executions after a 13-year hiatus due to a lack of lethal injection supplies and challenges to the other proposed methods: electrocution and firing squads. The state has restocked pentobarbital, a sedative, after passing a law to protect the identities of companies supplying the drug, which feared public backlash.
The state Supreme Court has authorized executions to be scheduled approximately every five weeks. An extraordinary pace would put pressure on attorneys representing multiple defendants and risk botched executions as a result of the rushed process, according to attorneys.
The first defendant executed last month was Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, 46, who was put to death days after a key witness came forward to say he had lied during the trial and that Allah was innocent.
“It’s like an assembly line. The state is motivated to kill convicted people as quickly as possible, and they are doing so despite evidence that might change their minds,” said Paul Bowers of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina.
