South Carolina executes Richard Moore as governor rejects widespread calls to grant clemency

South Carolina put Richard Moore to death by lethal injection Friday for the 1999 fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk, despite a broad appeal for mercy by parties that included three jurors and the judge from his trial, a former prison director, pastors, and his family.

Moore, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m.

Moore was convicted of killing the Spartanburg convenience store clerk in September 1999 and sentenced to death two years later.

Moore went into the store unarmed, took a gun from the victim when it was pointed at him and fatally shot him in the chest as the victim shot him with a second gun in the arm.

Moore’s lawyers asked Republican Gov. Henry McMaster to reduce his sentence to life in prison without parole because of his spotless prison record and willingness to be a mentor to other inmates.

They also said it would be unjust to execute someone for what could be considered self-defense and unfair that Moore, who is Black, was the only inmate on the state’s death row convicted by a jury without any African Americans.

But McMaster refused to grant clemency.

No South Carolina governor has reduced a death sentence, and 45 executions have now been carried out since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to restart executions nearly 50 years ago.