For Immediate Release
Justice 360’s Response to Execution Notice
for Richard Bernard Moore
October 4, 2024 – Columbia, S.C. – Today, the Supreme Court of South Carolina issued an Execution Notice for Richard Moore, setting his execution for November 1, 2024. Justice 360 attorneys have represented Richard Moore for more than a decade.
Moore’s execution would not be an act of justice; it would be an arbitrary act of vengeance. Moore is not the “worst of the worst” for whom the death penalty is supposed to be reserved. Instead, his death sentence is based on racial discrimination that the judicial system has so far failed to correct.
Moore was sentenced to death for the 1999 shooting death of convenience store clerk James Mahoney. Moore entered the store unarmed and defended himself when Mahoney pulled two guns on him. Moore wrestled one of the guns away and both Moore and Mahoney were shot. Mahoney died from his injuries. No other South Carolina death penalty case has involved an unarmed defendant who defended himself when the victim threatened him with a weapon.
Moore’s case was selected for the death penalty by a Spartanburg County prosecutor who had a history of seeking the death penalty only in cases involving white victims. To obtain a death sentence in this unlikely case, prosecutors struck all eligible African Americans from the jury. The result was the trial of a Black defendant for the killing of a white victim before an all-white jury. Moore is the last person on South Carolina’s death row sentenced by an all-white jury, making his death sentence “a relic of a bygone era,” according to former South Carolina Supreme Court Justice Kaye Hearn.
On September 26, 2024, Justice 360 attorneys filed a petition in the Supreme Court of the United States, requesting review of the jury selection in Moore’s case to determine if the prosecutor’s strikes were unconstitutionally based on race. Because of the jury’s indispensable role as “a criminal defendant’s fundamental protection of life and liberty against race or color prejudice,” racial discrimination in jury selection threatens the gravest of harms to criminal defendants and the criminal justice system. See Pena-Rodriquez v. Colorado, 580 U.S. 206 (2017); McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 310 (1987).
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found it is likely Moore’s human rights were violated during his trial. The Commission requested the State refrain from carrying out Moore’s death sentence until it or the Courts thoroughly review his case. Justice 360 urges South Carolina to not allow this unjust death sentence imposed on the basis of race to be carried out.
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Justice 360 is a 501(c)(3) South Carolina non-profit organization working to reform policies and practices in capital proceedings. For more information, visit Justice360sc.org or contact info@justice360sc.org.
