South Carolina Set To Execute Black Man As Controversy Swirls Over Racial Bias, Self-Defense Claims

Richard Moore is set to be executed for the 1999 murder of a store clerk.

On the heels of Missouri’s’s controversial execution of Marcellus Williams, South Carolina plans to execute Richard Moore on Nov. 1 for the 1999 murder of James Mahoney, who was working at Nikki’s Speedy Mart in Spartanburg County.

According to the Associated Press, like Williams’ execution, questions about the fairness of the justice system loom over this case. Moore, a Black man, is currently the only person on death row convicted by a jury without any Black people on it.

Lindsey Vann, Moore’s attorney, told the AP that Moore’s case carries distinction for another reason, he is currently the only person in modern South Carolina history sentenced to die after committing a murder in self-defense.

“Moore’s execution would not be an act of justice; it would be an arbitrary act of vengeance. Moore is not the ‘worst of the worst’ for whom the death penalty is supposed to be reserved. Instead, his death sentence is based on racial discrimination that the judicial system has so far failed to correct,” Vann said.

Moore plans to request that South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Henry McMaster reduce his sentence to life without parole. History is not on Moore’s side: no South Carolina governor has ever granted clemency to an incarcerated person in the modern era.

However, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled in recent years. In 2011, the state had 63 condemned incarcerated persons, but currently has 31. Twenty have been removed from death row after successful legal challenges, while others have died while incarcerated due to natural causes.

According to Vann, the prosecution moved to eliminate Black jurors from the jury pool by asking extensive and disparate questions and when this did not reduce the number to zero, they struck the two remaining jurors from the pool for reasons that appear to be discriminatory.

Moore’s lawyers have maintained that he had no intention on killing anyone that night and was only acting in self-defense.

According to Moore, he went into the store unarmed looking for cocaine, but Mahoney, the clerk, pulled a gun on him. Moore wrestled the gun away from Mahoney, who then pulled a second gun. A shootout ensued. Moore was wounded in his arm; Mahoney was shot in the chest.

According to prosecutors, Moore left a trail of blood as he stepped over Mahoney twice while looking for cash.