Hours away from execution, a South Carolina man is appealing to the governor for mercy

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) — Richard Moorewho is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Friday in South Carolina for the fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk in 1999, has one last chance to spare his life.

Moore’s lawyers asked Republican Gov. Henry McMaster for clemency, which no South Carolina governor has granted in the state’s 44 previous executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Governors in 24 other states they did it.

Three jurors who sentenced Moore to death in 2001, including one who wrote Friday: they sent letters asking McMaster to commute his sentence to life without parole. They are joined by a former warden of the state prison, Moore’s judge, his son and daughter, half a dozen childhood friends, and several pastors.

All say Moore, 59, is a changed man who loves God, loves his new grandchildren as much as he can, helps guards keep the peace and mentors other inmates after his addiction of drugs clouded his judgment and led to the exchange of fire in which James. Mahoney was killed, fittingly request for clemency.

Moore is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. at a prison in Columbia. He had two deferred execution dates as the state ironed out issues that created a 13-year moratorium on the death penalty, including the companies’ refusal to sell lethal injection drugs to the state, an obstacle that was resolved by passing a secrecy law.

Moore would be the second prisoner executed in South Carolina since it resumed executions. Four others were left without appeal and the state seems ready to put them to death five week intervals through the spring. If Moore dies Friday, that would leave 30 people on death row.

The governor said he is carefully reviewing everything he sent Moore’s lawyers and, as is his custom, will wait until minutes before the execution begins to announce his decision once he hears by phone that all appeals are completed.

“Clemency is a matter of grace, a matter of mercy. There is no standard. There is no real law on this,” McMaster told reporters Thursday.

In an interview for a video that accompanied his clemency petition, Moore expressed regret for killing Mahoney.

“This is definitely a part of my life that I wish I could change. I took a life. I took someone’s life. We broke the family of the deceased,” Moore said. “I pray for that family’s forgiveness.”

Mahoney’s prosecutors and 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 want justice to be served.

Moore’s attorneys say his original lawyers did not thoroughly examine the crime scene and left unchallenged prosecutors’ contention that Moore, who entered the store unarmed, shot a customer and that his initial intent was robbery.

According to their account, 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 took the gun from Mahoney’s hand and the clerk pulled out a second gun. Moore was shot in the arm and fired back, 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 spree 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 added his voice to calls for clemency, said Moore’s case is not the worst of the worst. of murder that would ordinarily trigger a death penalty case.

There are plenty of people who haven’t been sentenced to death but have committed far more heinous crimes, Ozmint said, citing the example Todd Kohlheppwho was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to murdering seven people, including a woman he 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 percent 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 of positively impacting everyone around him that he can reach,” Ozmint said in the clemency video. “I hope Governor McMaster gives Richard the rest of his life to pour into others.”

Moore’s son and daughter said he remained involved in their lives. He once asked them about their schoolwork and gave them advice through letters. Now he has grandchildren that he sees on video calls. Several letter writers mentioned that they would be sorry if Moore was removed from their lives.

“Even though my dad was gone, that still didn’t stop him from having a big impact on my life, a positive impact,” said Alexandria Moore, who joined the Air Force at her father’s encouragement.

She said her 5-year-old daughter asks, “Is that daddy?” when the phone rings at home at a military base in Spain.

“He’s a great man and I want her to know her grandfather as the man he is,” she said.