cnn
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A Black man set to be executed for murder Friday afternoon in South Carolina is asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a last-minute reprieve, saying prosecutors unfairly excluded Black people from the jury that convicted him.

“After both sides exhausted their peremptory remedies, an all-white jury, with two white alternate jurors, was empaneled for Moore’s capital trial,” attorneys for Richard Moore, 59, wrote in their late September petition. . One of the 12 jurors was Hispanic, the state’s lawyers said in response.

Moore is the last person remaining on South Carolina’s death row to be convicted by a jury with no black members, his defense attorneys say. He would be the second person executed since the state resumed capital punishment. after a hiatus of 13 years motivated by difficulty obtaining medications for their lethal injection protocola problem other states have faced.

Moore was convicted of killing a white convenience store employee, James Mahoney, during a robbery in 1999. Moore, who entered the store in Spartanburg County unarmed, took Mahoney’s gun. Mahoney then grabbed a second gun and shot Moore in the arm before Moore fatally shot him, prosecutors claimed.

Moore fled and took a bag filled with more than $1,400 in cash, they said.

Defense attorneys have argued that Moore killed Mahoney in self-defense. “No other death penalty case in South Carolina has involved an unarmed defendant who fought back when the victim threatened him with a gun,” they said. in a statement.

Meanwhile, more than 20 people, including two jurors and the judge in Moore’s original trial and a former director of the state prison system, are calling on the state’s Republican governor to spare Moore’s life by granting him clemency, The Associated Press. information.

Governor Henry McMaster is considering it and will not announce his decision until 5:45 p.m. Friday, minutes before the execution begins. saying Wednesday.

“I intend to review everything I can in a timely manner,” the governor told reporters. “The death penalty is a very serious decision regardless of the circumstances. “That is a very permanent, very serious and impressive punishment, and it must be considered very, very carefully.”

Moore’s son, who was 4 years old when his father was charged, says his father deserves mercy.

“He is a human being who made mistakes,” Lyndall Moore he told the AP. “And this particular mistake caused the death of another human being. But his sentence is completely disproportionate to the actual crime.”

Expanded Enforcement Methods in South Carolina

The Supreme Court in 1986 he governed Prosecutors cannot eliminate a potential juror based solely on his or her race. If challenged, the state must declare a “race-neutral” reason for excluding the candidate.

In Moore’s case, prosecutor Trey Gowdy – who later served four terms as republican congressman – told the judge that the main reason a black female jury candidate was eliminated was because she had tried to hide her criminal record during questioning, while he chose to exclude another because that person’s son had been convicted of murder, the state wrote in its opposition to Moore’s Supreme Court. order.

A white prospective juror who also had a close family member prosecuted for murder had also been affected for the same reason, Gowdy told the judge at the time. Moore’s attorney raised no objection to Gowdy’s reasons at the time the trial court asked him, according to the state.

In a brief filed Tuesday with the Supreme Court, South Carolina’s attorney general argued that it is too late for Moore to raise the issue of jurors’ race because it was not raised in some previous appeals. Moore’s lawyers responded Wednesday that the “unique procedural background” of the case should allow the justices to consider their arguments.

CNN reached out to Gowdy for comment Thursday. The Republican state’s attorney general and governor’s offices have not responded to CNN’s request for comment on Moore’s petition to the nation’s highest court.

Moore was found guilty of murder and armed robbery, among other charges, after two hours of deliberation by the jury, who sentenced him to death after only one more hour of discussion, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported in 2001.

Now Moore has chosen to be executed by lethal injection, his lawyers say.

Disputes over South Carolina’s access to lethal injection drugs led McMaster to sign a law in 2021 that allowed the state to also execute by electrocution or firing squad, giving death row inmates the option.

More than 1,600 people have been executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Thirty-four percent have been black, more than double the proportion of black US residents in 2023.

In an earlier federal court request to stay the execution, Moore’s attorneys raised concerns about McMaster’s past comments about clemency for death sentences, the ruling denying that request shows. The governor told a reporter in 2022 about Moore’s case: “I have no intention of commuting a sentence. “The jury made its decision.”

The deposition, Moore’s attorneys had argued, shows that McMaster could not make a fair decision on a clemency request because “he would have to give up years of his own work” in support of the death penalty as the state’s attorney general.

McMaster told the court in response: “It is and has been my intention and commitment to take care to understand the issues presented, including those relating to my review and consideration of applications, petitions and applications for clemency presented to me by or on behalf of a prisoner. condemned…”