A South Carolina death row inmate is given 10 days to decide how he wants to die

October 10, 2024, 2:23 PM

A death row inmate in the United States has been given ten days to decide how he wants to die.

Richard Moore, 59, was sentenced to death for shooting a store clerk in Spartanburg County, South Carolina in 1999.

Moore is due to be executed next month but has been told he must decide by October 18 between the firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair.

If he refuses to choose an option, he will be electrocuted, according to South Carolina state law.

Read more: The world’s longest-serving death row inmate exonerated after more than half a century in prison

Moore has appealed to the Supreme Court and state Governor Henry McMaster to replace his execution with life in prison without parole.

However, this is unlikely to be successful as no South Carolina governor in modern times has ever granted clemency to a death row inmate.

Moore’s case is unique because he is the only death row inmate in South Carolina convicted without a Black person on the jury.

Moore, 59, shot and killed unarmed store clerk James Mahoney in September 1999.

He planned to rob the store.

Moore was initially unarmed when he entered the store, but ultimately used one of Mahoney’s guns in the fatal shooting.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 44 people have been executed in the Palmetto State.

However, due to a thirteen-year hiatus, no one has been executed in a while, with Moore’s death on November 1 believed to be the first.