Judges refuse to stop the execution of a South Carolina inmate who says the jury was racially biased

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court declined Thursday to halt the execution of a South Carolina inmate Richard Moore, a black inmate whose lawyers say he is the only person on death row convicted by a jury without African-American members.

There were no dissents in the Supreme Court’s brief order.

Moore will die by lethal injection at a Columbia prison on Friday at 6 p.m. The only other chance to save his life is if Republican Gov. Henry McMaster decides to reduce Moore’s sentence to life in prison. No South Carolina governor has done that granted leniency in 44 executions in the state over the past 50 years.

Moore, 59, fatally shot a store clerk in Spartanburg in 1999. Prosecutors said Moore entered the store to rob the store and was not armed, but took a gun from the store clerk, who then pulled a second gun. The two shot at each other and Moore was hit in the arm. The clerk, James Mahoney, was killed by a bullet to the chest.

Moore said he came in to buy cigarettes and beer and argued with Mahoney when he was 11 or 12 cents short. Moore said Mahoney pointed a gun at him and Moore wrestled it away. The clerk then shot him with the second gun and he returned fire, Moore said.

After Mahoney was shot, Moore took about $1,400 from the store and left without calling for help.

Moore’s attorneys said no one else on South Carolina’s death row began their crime unarmed or ended up killing anyone in possible self-defense.

They also said Moore is the only inmate in the state convicted by a jury without African-American members. About 20% of Spartanburg County residents were black at the time of the 2001 trial.

Moore has had two performance dates postponed as the state resolved issues that caused a 13-year lull in executions, including companies’ refusal to sell lethal injection drugs to the state. That problem was solved by passing a secrecy law.

Moore would be the second prisoner executed since the state restarted its death chamber in September. Four others have no further appeal and the state appears prepared to put them to death five-week intervals through the spring. If Moore dies Friday, that would leave 30 inmates on South Carolina’s death row.

On Wednesday, Moore’s lawyers submitted a clemency petition to the governor, which contained more than 40 pages of letters beg for mercy. The letter writers included two jurors and the judge from his original trial, as well as a former warden of the state prison system, six childhood friends, five family members and several former attorneys who said Moore still controls their families after they failed to keep him. outside death row.

Moore is a born-again Christian who mentors his fellow inmates on isolated death row. If his sentence is reduced to life without parole, his good influence could spread to many more inmates, his lawyers have argued. He has remained involved in the lives of his children behind bars and now has grandchildren whom he regularly calls, according to the clemency application.

Moore regrets his crime and would apologize to Mahoney’s family if given the chance, his attorneys said.

“While he can never make amends for the life he has taken, he has tried to do all he can to improve the lives of those around him by bettering himself,” attorney Lindsey Vann wrote in papers sent to the governor were sent. “Through prayer and study he has become a more faithful Christian; through consistent communication and love, he has become a better father (and now grandfather); and through all this he has acquired maturity and wisdom, which makes him an asset to the prison system.”