Judges refuse to halt execution of South Carolina inmate who says jury was racially biased

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday refused to stay 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 non-African-American jury.

There was no dissent in the summary order issued by the high court.

Moore is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Friday by lethal injection at a prison in Columbia. The only other chance to save his life is if Republican Governor Henry McMaster decides to commute Moore’s sentence to life in prison. No South Carolina governor has pardoned 44 executions in the state over the past 50 years.

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

Moore said he came 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 got away from him. The clerk then fired a second gun at him, and he fired back, 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 without a gun and ended it by killing someone in possible self-defense.

They also said Moore is the only inmate in the state convicted by a non-African-American jury. About 20% of Spartanburg County residents were black at the time of the 2001 trial.

Moore had two deadlines have been postponed as the state dealt with problems that led to a 13-year hiatus in executions, including the companies’ refusal to sell lethal injection drugs to the state. This issue was resolved by passing the secrecy law.

Moore would be the second prisoner was executed as the state reopened its death chamber in September. Four more appeals are pending, and the state appears ready to execute them five-week intervals through the spring If Moore dies Friday, 30 inmates will remain on South Carolina’s death row.

On Wednesday, Moore’s lawyers filed a more than 40-page clemency petition with the governor. letters begging for mercy. The letter’s authors included two jurors and a judge from his original trial, as well as a former director of the state’s penitentiary system, six childhood friends, five relatives and several former attorneys who said Moore is still checking on their families because they failed to keep him outside death row.

Moore is a born-again Christian who mentors his fellow inmates on death row, and if his sentence is reduced to life without parole, his good influence could spread to many other inmates, his lawyers say. He remained involved in his children’s lives behind bars and now has grandchildren he calls regularly, according to the pardon request.

Moore is remorseful for his crime and would apologize to the Mahoney family if given the chance, his attorneys said.

“While he will never be able to make up for the life he took, he tried his best to improve the lives of those around him by improving himself,” attorney Lindsay Vann wrote in documents sent to the governor. “Thanks to prayer and study, he became a more faithful Christian; thanks to constant communication and love, he became a better father (and now a grandfather); and through all this he has acquired a maturity and wisdom which makes him a benefit to the penitentiary system.’