South Carolina executes Richard Moore after the governor rejects the clemency request

1 of 2 | Authorities in South Carolina carried out the execution of Richard Moore on Friday evening, despite pleas for clemency from the state’s Republican governor. File Photo courtesy of the South Carolina Department of Corrections

Government of South Carolina Henry McMaster refused to intervene after a plea from Moore and his legal team for leniency, paving the way for the execution.

Several of Moore’s supporters, including two former jurors and the judge who presided over his murder trial, signed a petition calling on McMaster to commute the death sentence to life in prison.

McMaster was expected to wait until the last minute before making a decision.

Moore was sentenced to death for the 1999 murder of convenience store clerk James Mahoney during a robbery in Spartanburg S.C.

At the trial he was convicted.

Lawyers have argued that the trial was unfair because there were no African Americans on the 12-person jury.

Advocates have also argued that trial attorneys erred by not pushing a self-defense narrative. Moore and Mahoney initially struggled and each ended up with a gun, with both men shot at the time.

Moore was hit in the arm and left the scene.

“To the family of Mr. James Mahoney: I am deeply sorry for the pain and sorrow I have caused you all. To my children and granddaughters: I love you, and I am so proud of you. Thank you for the joy that you brought to my life,” Moore said when he got the chance to say his own last words, according to to South Carolina Department of Corrections officials.

Moore’s legal team and those who signed the petition argued that his case does not meet the requirements for murder.

Prosecutors allege Moore showed no remorse, left the scene of the robbery with $1,400 in cash and failed to call for help.

Moore was originally scheduled to be executed in 2022. choose death by firing squad instead of the electric chair.

South Carolina halted executions in 2011 when it could not obtain the lethal injection drugs it needed.

The state executed Freddie Owens in September, the first death sentence performed indoors South Carolina in more than a decade.

“I have no doubt that in most counties this would not have been a death penalty case,” said former South Carolina Department of Corrections Director John Ozmint. told the Greenville News in an interview earlier this week.