Richard Moore, a 59-year-old father and grandfather, is scheduled to be executed in South Carolina on Nov. 1 for the 1999 killing of a convenience store clerk in a shootout, though Moore entered the store without a weapon. His attorneys said he never intended to kill anyone and the death penalty is not a fair punishment. Advocates for commutation include a former state supreme court justice, jurors, a former director of the state’s department of corrections and more.
Moore’s attorney, John Blume, said that when Moore entered Nikki’s Speedy Mart in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, he attempted to buy beer and cigarettes but did not have enough money to pay. Blume said Moore tried to use change from the coin plate on the store counter but the clerk, James Mahoney, placed a gun on the counter. Blume said the two struggled for the gun, then Mahoney pulled out a second gun. Moore was shot in the arm by Mahoney, who was shot by Moore and died. Blume said Moore took money from the register as an afterthought, fled the scene and was arrested as he sought help for his wounded arm.
Prosecutors came up with a narrative that Moore had done the “armed robbery” to support a drug addiction, despite the fact that Moore went into the store without a weapon. Moore’s lawyers throughout his trial, a post conviction relief hearing in 2011, and a habeas petition to the Supreme Court said that he had no intent to rob the store or harm the clerk.
“The state alleged that he went in there to commit a robbery to get drugs, but the problem with that is in general, people don’t go into a store to commit a robbery without a weapon,” Blume said. “Moore clearly went into the store without a weapon.”
According to a statement from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), “if executed, he would be the first put to death in the modern death penalty era who was unarmed initially and subsequently defended himself when threatened.” The DPIC also noted that Moore is “the only South Carolina death row prisoner to have been sentenced by a jury with no Black jurors, and if executed, he would be the first put to death in the state’s modern death penalty era who was unarmed initially and subsequently defended himself when threatened.
Moore’s advocates argue that his case was tainted with racism and was collateral “in a political football game in what otherwise should not have been a death penalty eligible case.” During the time of Moore’s trial, there was an election for solicitor (chief prosecutor) in which the incumbent lost and sentenced Moore to death in his final days in office, challenging that if his opponent overturned Moore’s death sentence, he was soft on crime.
The incumbent solicitor, Holman Gossett, had a history of seeking the death penalty in 43% of eligible cases, but never in a case where the victim was Black. According to DPIC, in 75% of death penalty cases nationally, the victim was white. The death penalty is also disproportionately applied to Black people, as they make up 34% of executions despite being 13% of the population. There have been 1,602 executions since 1970, and South Carolina was responsible for 44 of them. Moore would be the 21st person executed in the U.S. this year.
In addition, the prosecutors in Moore’s case struck all Black people from the jury, resulting in Moore receiving his conviction through an all white jury, the last person of color on South Carolina’s death row to be convicted by such a jury. Blume said that Moore filed a petition with the state supreme court for a retrial due to the role the all-white jury played.
“The punishment does not fit the crime,” Rev. Hillary Taylor, executive director of the South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (SCADP), said in an interview. “Richard Moore is not the worst of the worst; he was somebody who experienced racism in his trial process.”
Moore has exhausted all his appeals. In 2022, he filed a habeas petition with the state supreme court to challenge the proportionality of his death sentence to his crime. He argued that his sentence was excessive compared to other similar cases, but the Supreme Court denied this petition. State Supreme Court Justice Kaye Hearn wrote a dissent, in which she called the system broken and disagreed with the conclusion that Moore’s sentence was fair.
“Every murder is tragic, even heinous to the victim’s family, but the death penalty is such a final and devastating penalty that it should only be meted out in the worst of the worst cases,” Hearn said. “I just did not find that the facts of Richard Moore’s case rose to that level.”
At the time, Hearn had spent 13 years on the court and voted to affirm 11 death sentences, having never dissented. She said that Moore’s case is an outlier and called it a “relic of a bygone era. “I think it’s tragic, I do not believe Richard Moore deserves to die,” Hearn said. “I think that that tells me our system is not working as it should.”
Moore’s legal team has sent a clemency petition to South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to stop the execution. However, the governor has stated that he has no intention of commuting Moore’s death sentence.
Jon Ozmint, former director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, contended in a letter to the governor that Moore’s death sentence should be commuted to a life without parole sentence because of the uncontested fact that Moore did not have a weapon when he entered the store so “he certainly did not plan to commit armed robbery.”
Ozmint wrote that Moore’s case “would not be considered for the death penalty in other counties in the state” and that he has watched as many other men “whose crimes were far more heinous and planned than Mr. Moore” never considered for death sentences and earned parole.
“If he intended to rob the store before he entered, he would have carried a gun,” Ozmint wrote. “Since he did not take a weapon, he clearly did not enter the store with intent to commit armed robbery.”
Ozmint wrote that he recommends commutation of Moore’s death sentence because he believes that it “would have a positive influence on hundreds of offenders who would be impacted by Richard’s story of redemption and his positive example.” He said that since Moore arrived on death row in October 2001, he has only had two minor discipline reports at the beginning of his sentence, and has become a “born-again follower of Jesus.” Ozmint believes that “SCDC needs good lifers, life without parole lifers, to serve as role models” and that Moore could be one of them.
“The staff there know who can be trusted and Richard is clearly one of several reliable and respected inmates on the row,” Ozmint wrote. “His story and his manner of living would allow him to be an influential force for good in the general population, with an ability to have a positive impact on the most recalcitrant and hopeless young offenders.”
In addition to Ozmint, Blume said that several jurors from his case and individual citizens have written letters of support to the governor asking for Moore’s life to be spared.
Advocates contend that executing Moore only creates more victims. He has two children and grandchildren who will lose him if the state proceeds with the death penalty. Blume said that with Moore’s guiding hand, his children were able to lead successful lives — his daughter joined the Air Force and his son was a high school valedictorian and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Blume said that executing Moore would be “continuing the cycle of violence on these children and grandchildren that he has.”
“My father is always supportive and has shown immense love throughout the distance, throughout these two decades,” Alexandria Moore told MSNBC in 2022. “Our relationship has remained strong. The distance between us, he doesn’t let it affect his parenting at all. It’s incredible the effort he puts in to make sure that I know he loves me.”
Blume also said that Moore is “trying to remain optimistic that … the governor will grant clemency, but he’s also trying to prepare for his execution.”
“He understands that the odds are long, but he wants to, and does remain, somewhat optimistic,” Blume said.
Last month, South Carolina resumed carrying out executions for the first time in a decade with Khalil Allah, also known as Freddie Owens, who was convicted for the murder of a woman who Allah maintained he did not kill. Two days before the execution, his codefendant withdrew his statement and said Allah was not even present when the robbery in which she was killed was happening. He said that Allah was framed, but the state proceeded with his execution anyway. There are more than 30 people on South Carolina’s death row.
There is a
SCADP petition circulating, calling on the governor to stop Moore’s execution and grant Moore clemency, which has close to 4,000 signatures at the time of publication. An additional
petition by Death Penalty Action has more than 7,300 signatures. Rev. Taylor said that SCADP will continue holding vigils and rallies to educate the public on Moore’s case and give people action steps for how to advocate.
Source:
scheerpost.com, Victoria Venezuela, October xx, 2024
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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