Richard Moore was executed by injection on Friday in South Carolina for the fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk in 1999, minutes after the appeal his lawyers sent to Republican Governor Henry McMaster for clemency failed.
Richard Moore was executed by injection this Friday, at 6:24 p.m. EDT in South Carolina for the fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk back in 1999, after a series of appeals claiming his case wasn’t fair.
Unfortunately all legal options failed, placing the case in front of the state’s Republican governor. Ultimately, Governor Henry McMaster decided against Moore, denying his bid to live out the rest of his life behind bars.
No governor in South Carolina has granted in the past 44 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
South Carolina sets execution date for man who murdered store clerk as state ramps up executions after 13-year pause
However, governors in 24 other states have done so. This would be the second execution since reinstating the death penalty in South Carolina. After Moore’s death, there are now 30 people remaining on death row.
His daughter described him as a ‘great man’ and a good man who ‘loves God’ and painted scenes of Jesus from his jail cell.
Three jurors from Moore’s 2001 tria previously penned letters urging McMaster to commute his sentence to life without parole, along with a former state prison director, Moore’s trial judge, his son and daughter, several childhood friends, and various pastors.
All argued that Moore, 59, was a transformed man who loved God, cherished his new grandchildren as best he could, assisted guards in maintaining order, and mentored fellow inmates.
His drug addiction, they say, clouded his judgment, leading to the shootout where James Mahoney lost his life, according to the clemency petition.
His execution date has been postponed twice as the state navigated through issues causing a 13-year hiatus in the death penalty, including companies refusing to sell lethal injection drugs to the state, an obstacle overcome by passing a secrecy law.
The state is prepared to execute four more inmates who have exhausted their appeals, scheduling their deaths at five-week intervals throughout the spring.
Governor McMaster, who had the final say on clemency, stated before the event that he would make his decision known just before the execution once all appeals were concluded.
“Clemency is a matter of grace, a matter of mercy. There is no standard. There is no real law on it,” McMaster explained to the press on Thursday.
In a video accompanying his plea for clemency, Moore expressed deep regret for the murder of Mahoney: “This is definitely part of my life I wish I could change. I took a life. I took someones life. I broke the family of the deceased,” Moore lamented, adding, “I pray for the forgiveness of that particular family.”
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