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Death row inmate Richard Moore, 59, has been given a choice in how he will be executed in South Carolina on November 1st. He can choose between a firing squad, the electric chair, or lethal injection.
Moore was sentenced to death for the 1999 shooting of a store clerk. He went into the store unarmed to rob it and ended up in a shootout after taking one of the clerk’s guns. Moore was wounded, while the clerk died.
Moore has until October 18th to decide his method of execution. If he does not choose, he will be electrocuted by default.
His execution would be the second in South Carolina since 2011, when the state was unable to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injection. Moore is appealing to the Supreme Court to stop the execution. He argues that he was the only Black man on death row in South Carolina convicted by an all-white jury.
The state’s electric chair, built in 1912, was tested recently and found to be working properly. The firing squad, allowed by a 2021 law, has the necessary equipment and training.
Moore plans to ask Governor McMaster for mercy and a sentence reduction to life without parole. No governor in South Carolina has granted clemency in a death penalty case in modern history.