A 21-year-old university student from Spartanburg delivered a fiery plea Saturday on the steps of the state capital in hopes of sparing death row inmate Richard Moore from the firing squad.
“Richard Moore’s death was temporarily halted,” said Courtney McCain, a junior broadcast journalism major at the University of South Carolina.
“Our fight is not over until it is fully commuted and everyone on death row’s sentences are fully commuted.”
WHAT WE KNOW:Death penalty case of Spartanburg County's Richard Moore
A look back:Moore receives death penalty for convenience store killing
The execution of Spartanburg's Moore, 57, scheduled for April 29, was halted this week with a temporary stay by the state's Supreme Court.
McCain was among several speakers in front of a crowd of about 50 people at a rally to oppose the death penalty and Moore’s pending execution. The rally was organized by the South Carolina NAACP, which assisted the the Greenville and Laurenschapters.
McCain said Moore’s crime was not egregious enough to warrant a death penalty.
“Richard Moore was convicted by an all-white jury,” she said. “The weapon that was used to kill that white man was owned by the white man, not by Richard Moore. First-degree murder is not valid because he did not bring that weapon to the place that it happened.”
Moore, who is Black, was convicted by a jury of 11 white people and one Latino person, no Black people were on his jury.
The Rev. J.M. Fleming, president of the Greenville NAACP, said all methods of carrying out the death penalty are wrong and disproportionately target the poor, mentally ill and people of color.
“The death penalty is morally wrong,” he said. “The reason you have the death penalty was the reason to get rid of certain people, people who look like me.”
Many of those who attended the rally said the death penalty is archaic, and they opposed all methods.
Death by firing squad is particularly barbaric, said Columbia lawyer Stuart Andrews.
“I’m one of a large group of South Carolinians who believe the death penalty is wrong,” he said. “Research has shown it is not a deterrent of crime.”
He said he does not oppose life in prison as a sentencing option, and noted that there have been cases involving those serving life that were overturned because new evidence years later proved their innocence.
Ty Young of Laurens, a broadcast journalism major at USC, said he came to support the NAACP’s message that the death penalty is racist, cruel and morally wrong.
He said he is somewhat familiar with Richard Moore’s case.
“The whole thing is inhumane,” he said. “I do believe in consequences, but when someone is riddled with bullets or fried sitting in an electric chair, that is really inhumane.”
EXECUTION STAYED:Supreme Court grants motion to stay execution of Spartanburg's Richard Moore
What we know:Death penalty case of Spartanburg County's Richard Moore
Moore was sentenced to death on Oct. 22, 2001, after he was convicted for the murder of James Mahoney, 42, at Nikki’s Speedy Mart in Spartanburg on Sept. 16, 1999.
At this stage, Moore has exhausted all avenues for an appeal for his case in the state courts. His execution would have beenthe state’s first since 2011 and it would be the first in modern times carried out in South Carolina by thenewly-established firing squad. It would be the fourth firing squad execution in the US since the death penalty was reinstated nationally in 1976.
In a statement to the South Carolina Supreme Court regarding his election, Moore wrote:
"I do not believe or concede that either the firing squad or electrocution is legal or constitutional. I do not believe the Department should be allowed to certify that a statutorilyprescribed method, such as lethal injection, is unavailable without demonstrating a good faith effort to make it available. However, Imore strongly oppose death by electrocution. Because the Department says I must choose between firing squad or electrocution or be executedby electrocution I will elect firing squad."
Objections have been raised about Moore's intent and whether his crime called for the death penalty.
Attorneys filed for relief on Moore’s behalf to the state Supreme Court on the basis that a death sentence was disproportionate to his crime. The relief was denied despite a 14-page dissent from Justice Kaye G. Hearn. In her dissent, she wrote the state’s system was broken.
Hearn wrote that “by improperly focusing on whether the crime committed by Moore meets the legal definition of armed robbery, the majority completely loses sight of the vast difference between a ‘robbery gone bad’ and a planned and premeditated murder.”
EXECUTION DELAYED:South Carolina Supreme Court delays scheduled execution of Greenville County's Brad Sigmon
Greenville News reporters Caitlin Herrington andKathryn Casteelcontributed to this story.
Contact Bob Montgomery at bob.montgomery@shj.com. Please support our coverage of Spartanburg County with a digital subscription.
