South Carolina Supreme Court sets Nov. 1 as next execution date of a death row inmate

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Supreme Court issued an execution notice for Richard Moore, who was convicted of shooting a convenience store clerk. He is scheduled to die on Nov. 1.

In 1999, Moore walked into Nikki’s Speedy Mart convenience store in Spartanburg County unarmed. His goal was to rob the store to buy cocaine.

He got into a fight with the store clerk, James Mahoney, who had a gun. The gun went off and killed the store clerk. Moore got ahold of the gun and fired a shot at a bystander, but missed.

After leaving the crime scene, Moore got into a car accident. When a police officer arrived, Moore got out of his truck, laid down on the road and said “I did it.”

A cash bag from the convenience store containing $1,408 was found in the truck.

Moore was convicted in 2001 of murder, armed robbery, possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime and assault with intent to kill. It took the jury just two hours to decide on the guilty verdict. Jurors could have recommended a life sentence without parole. Instead, Moore was given the death penalty.

He did not dispute his guilt, according to The State’s previous reporting.

In 2022, Moore said that he wished to die by firing squad rather than electrocution, the two options available at the time. In a statement, he wrote that he believed that neither option was legal or constitutional.

“I believe this election is forcing me to choose between two unconstitutional methods of execution, and I do not intend to waive any challenges to electrocution or firing squad by making an election,” Moore wrote.

Moore was one of four inmates who filed a lawsuit in 2022 alleging that the two methods of execution at the time — electrocution and firing squad — were unconstitutional. At the time, the state was unable to obtain drugs for lethal injection. The drugs became available after the state passed a law shielding the identity of the drug companies.

On Sept. 20, Freddie Owens was killed by lethal injection, the state’s first execution in 13 years. Now, 31 people on South Carolina’s death row await execution. Several have exhausted their appeals.