Thursday, March 28

SC man again scheduled to die by firing squad or electric chair after latest appeal denied | Palmetto Politics


COLUMBIA — A 57-year-old South Carolina man has been scheduled to die by either the electric chair or firing squad, nearly 23 years after killing a convenience store clerk during a robbery.

A notice from the state Supreme Court sets Richard Bernard Moore’s execution for Friday, April 29, though another appeal could delay that again.

Under state law, Moore will be asked to make his choice — electric chair or firing squad — 14 days before his execution.

The April 7 notice comes a day after justices denied his attorneys’ appeal to overturn Moore’s death sentence as excessive.

At a hearing before the state’s high court last year, attorney Whitney Harrison argued Moore received a disproportionately severe sentence when compared to other cases involving robberies that resulted in death.

Moore was sentenced to death in 2001 after being convicted of murder, assault with intent to kill, armed robbery and a firearms violation.

He has admitted to grabbing a bag of money from the Spartanburg County store before fleeing but insisted he shot the clerk in self-defense after the man pulled a gun on him.

Moore was unarmed when he showed up, Harrison told the court last year.

In a split decision April 6, justices called that irrelevant.

“Whether Moore entered the store with a weapon or whether he armed himself once inside is not determinative of either his intent or the egregiousness of the offenses he ultimately committed,” reads the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Don Beatty. “The significant fact is that Moore became armed at some point during the commission of the offenses.”

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Justices John Few and George James concurred with the ruling. John Kittredge agreed with the conclusion only. Kaye Hearn partially agreed but vehemently disagreed with the conclusion in a lengthy separate opinion.

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“Unquestionably, Moore is guilty,” she wrote. “I find the majority’s conclusion that Moore’s sentence is not disproportionate when compared to similar cases utterly unpersuasive. Consequently, Richard Moore will be put to death for a sentence that I do not believe is legal under our law.”

Hearn noted the state Supreme Court hasn’t found a single death sentence disproportionate since 1977, when the General Assembly required such a review. That includes 43 people put to death since capital punishment was reinstated and the 35 inmates on death row who have exhausted their direct appeals.

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“The state characterizes these statistics — currently, approximately zero for 77 — as proof that our capital sentencing scheme functions as it should,” she wrote, noting appeals for the most recent inmate put on Death Row continue. “I write separately to express my view that our system is broken.”

Moore’s attorneys cited Hearn’s opinion in again asking the state Supreme Court for a reprieve.

Their request for a delay, filed hours after the court set his execution, seeks time for challenges in state circuit court on the constitutionality of the state’s execution methods and the US Supreme Court on whether his sentence was excessive.

“As Justice Hearn thoroughly explained in her dissenting opinion, Moore’s case demonstrates that South Carolina’s death penalty ‘system is broken,’ and the Supreme Court of the United States should have an opportunity to review the issues raised in this case,” reads the motion filed late April 7.

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Moore was initially scheduled to die in December 2020, but his execution was put on hold because the state lacked the drugs needed to kill him through lethal injection — then the default method for execution.

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The state’s supply of the cocktail used for lethal injection expired in 2013, and opposition to the death penalty has resulted in pharmaceutical companies being unwilling to supply any more.

A law signed by Gov. Henry McMaster last year made the electric chair the default method of execution and added the firing squad as an alternative. Lethal injection is still an option, if the drugs become available again.

The executions of two inmates scheduled to die after the law was signed were put on hold because the SC Department of Corrections lacked the ability to carry out an execution by firing squad. Justices said it needed to be a real option. The prisons agency notified the attorney general last month it had the protocols in place, should a condemned inmate make that selection.

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Also on April 6, justices denied the latest appeal from Brad Sigmon’s attorneys to delay setting another execution date until the courts resolved a separate challenge on whether electrocution and firing squad are unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment.

That means execution dates could also be set soon for Sigmon and Freddie Owens, who was also scheduled to die last summer.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include Moore’s request for a delay of the execution date.

Follow Seanna Adcox on Twitter at @seannaadcox_pc.

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