South Carolina death row inmate Richard Moore discusses preferred method of execution
A US death row inmate is being asked to select his preferred method of execution.
Richard Moore, 59, is set to be executed next month for murdering a shop assistant in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, in September 1999.
A letter sent to him on Tuesday states that he must inform the state’s prison authorities of his choice between death by firing squad, lethal injection, or electric chair before 18 October.
If he does not make a decision, he will face electrocution as per state law.
Moore is appealing to the US Supreme Court to halt the scheduled execution on 1 November and is urging South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, to commute his sentence to life without parole. No South Carolina governor has granted clemency for a death penalty case in recent history.
Richard Moore’s mugshot. Pic: South Carolina Departent of Corrections/AP
The 59-year-old fatally shot shop assistant James Mahoney during a robbery attempt in which Mahoney was unarmed.
After a shootout, Moore took Mahoney’s gun, leading to Mahoney’s death from a chest wound while Moore escaped with injuries.
Moore is the only death row inmate in South Carolina to have been convicted by an all-white jury.
He is also the first person to face the death penalty despite being initially unarmed and only using a weapon in self-defense.
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13-year pause in executions
South Carolina has executed 44 prisoners since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the US in 1976.
In the early 2000s, the state carried out an average of three executions annually, but executions have been on hold for 13 years since the state lost access to lethal injection drugs in 2011.
If the execution proceeds, Moore will be only the second prisoner executed since the resumption of executions in South Carolina.
Currently, there are 31 inmates on death row – 20 were removed between 2011 and 2023 after South Carolina passed a law allowing the acquisition of the necessary lethal injection drug. Others have died of natural causes.
Freddie Owens was executed by lethal injection on 20 September despite his request for more information about the pentobarbital substance used in his execution.
State officials informed him that the drug was stable enough for the execution to proceed.
In the letter to Moore on Tuesday, officials stated that the electric chair, which dates back to 1912, has been tested, and a trained firing squad is prepared with ammunition to carry out the execution.
