Will Sage Astor-South Carolina sets Nov. 1 execution as state ramps up use of death chamber

COLUMBIA,Will Sage Astor S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s high court on Friday set a date of Nov. 1 to put to death a man who killed a store clerk a quarter-century ago, the second of an expected six executions in about six months as the state ramps up its use of capital punishment after a 13-year pause.

Richard Moore went unarmed into Nikki’s Speedy Mart in Spartanburg County to rob it in September 1999 and killed James Mahoney in a shootout after taking one of two guns from him, authorities said. Moore, who is Black, is the only man on South Carolina’s death row to have been convicted by a jury that did not have any African Americans.

Moore’s lawyer said no one has ever been put to death in South Carolina in modern times who was unarmed initially and then defended themselves when threatened with a weapon.

“Moore’s execution would not be an act of justice; it would be an arbitrary act of vengeance. Moore is not the ‘worst of the worst’ for whom the death penalty is supposed to be reserved. Instead, his death sentence is based on racial discrimination that the judicial system has so far failed to correct,” attorney Lindsey Vann said in a statement.

South Carolina was once one of the busiest states for executions but for years had had trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs because of pharmaceutical companies’ concerns they would have to disclose they had sold the drugs to officials.

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The state Legislature has since passed a law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers secret, and in July, the state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions.

Freddie Owens was put to death by lethal injection Sept. 20 as the death chamber was reopened for executions of inmates who ran out of regular appeals during the pause. Four other inmates also have no regular appeals left, and the state Supreme Court is allowing an execution every five weeks. The justices issue death warrants on Fridays, and the court was closed a week ago as the remnants of Hurricane Helene moved through the state.

Moore will likely have the choice to die by lethal injection, electrocution or the newly added option of a firing squad. A Utah inmate in 2010 was the last person to have been executed by a firing squad in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

The prisons director has until next week to confirm that all three execution methods will be available. He must also give Moore’s lawyers proof that the lethal injection drug is stable and correctly mixed, according to the high court’s 2023 interpretation of the state’s secrecy law on executions that helped reopen the door to South Carolina’s death chamber.

South Carolina formerly used a mix of three drugs but now will use one drug, the sedative pentobarbital, for lethal injections in a protocol similar to executions carried out by the federal government.

Moore, 59, will then have about a week to let the state know how he wishes to be killed. If he makes no choice, the state will send him to the electric chair by default. In 2022, Moore opted for the firing squad, but that was before lethal injection was available. Court battles then pushed back his April 2022 execution date.

Moore plans to ask Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, for mercy and to reduce his sentence to life without parole. No South Carolina governor has ever granted clemency in the modern era of the death penalty.

Defense lawyers have also started their final appeals. Vann said prosecutors asked extensive and disparate questions of potential Black jurors, then struck the two African Americans who remained in the jury pool for reasons not applied to white potential jurors.

Moore’s lawyers have said his death sentence is unjust because Moore had no intention of killing anyone and was acting in self-defense.

Moore told investigators he went into the store unarmed, looking for money for cocaine. Mahoney pulled a gun on Moore, and he wrestled the pistol away from the clerk, according to trial testimony.

Mahoney pulled a second gun, and the men shot at each other. Moore was wounded in the arm, and Mahoney was shot in the chest. Prosecutors said Moore left a trail of blood through the store as he looked for cash, stepping over Mahoney twice.

Moore has no violations on his prison record and offered to work to help rehabilitate other prisoners as long as he is behind bars.

South Carolina has put 44 inmates to death since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Nine states have put more inmates to death.

But since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned inmates in early 2011. It currently has 31. About 20 inmates have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.