COLUMBIA S.C. — In a matter of days, South Carolina inmate Richard Moore is scheduled to become the second person executed in the state this year, and his attorney continues his fight against it.

Moore was sentenced to death by a jury for the 1999 murder of store clerk James Mahoney in Spartanburg County. As execution day approaches, his lawyer Lindsey Vann continues to argue that he was wrongfully convicted, and his case remains at an impasse. a number of racial and political factors.

Vann said Richard Moore should be removed from the death penalty because of an all-white jury that made its decision, a contentious political race among attorneys during the trial and what they felt was a conflict of interest with the governor.

Prosecutors said Moore robbed the store, but Mahoney said he defended himself after Richard Moore pulled a gun on him in an argument about not having enough change for the items he purchased.

Vann also said the state had black jurors authorized to try the case and removed them from the jury.

Vann argues that giving Richard Moore the death penalty was a political move by the prosecutors in the case, Holman Gossett and Trey Gowdy.

“Holman Gossett brought up the death penalty in the case. He said Trey Gowdy won’t be tough on crime. “He will not use the death penalty,” Vann said.

According to Greenville News, Gossett had a history of seeking the death penalty against Black defendants when the victim was white, and almost never pushed for the death penalty when the victim was Black.

UGA murder suspect’s brother’s sentence rescinded

Diego Ibarra, the brother of the man accused in the death of former University of Georgia student Laken Riley earlier this year, was to be sentenced Monday after pleading guilty to charges of possessing a false immigration document.

Lyndall Moore said her father has been in prison since she was 4 years old.

“This is not the planned, premeditated case that you think of when you think of the death penalty,” he said. “He didn’t enter the store planning to kill anyone. “I don’t think he even went into the store thinking it might be a murder because he didn’t have a gun to carry out such a thing.”

The defense argues that Richard Moore acted in self-defense. The prosecution had no comment prior to this story.

Former attorney Holman Gossett, who handled the case — died in July 2023, and the current attorney in Spartanburg County — the deputy attorney at the time of the trial — declined to comment.

Governor Henry McMaster was the attorney general during Moore’s trial.

Richard Moore’s attorney filed a lawsuit saying McMaster should not grant clemency – having claimed so in the past – which McMaster said he would not do.

Hillary Taylor, Executive Director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (SCDAP), also argues that race factored into the prosecution’s prosecution of the case.

“Holman Gossett almost exclusively tried black defendants with white victims on death row. In the modern death penalty era, all but 1 in 16 cases in Spartanburg County were Black defendants with white victims. This shows that he was not tried for the worst of the death penalty from the very beginning,” Taylor said.

There are many who hope for a breakthrough in Richard Moore; like former death row inmate Raymond Patterson, who was released after being imprisoned with Moore.

“We try to make everyone who walks in feel that they are not alone. “There are people who support them,” Patterson said. “They should abolish the death penalty because, as I said, the death penalty is not the solution to the problem. It is not used fairly. It is used as a symbol for blacks, poor people and poor whites.”

Meanwhile, Richard Moore’s son begins to face a harsh reality as the potential end draws near.

“Of course you know we’re thinking about it. I think I’m imagining how I’m going to feel later,” she said. “It’s not over until it’s over, you know? It’s still here. So I’m going to keep living and she’s going to keep living because she’s still here.”

Richard Moore’s execution is scheduled for November 1. He chose lethal injection for his execution.

Copyright 2024 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.