South Carolina death row inmate given 10 days to decide how he wants to die
10 October 2024, 14:23
A death row inmate in the United States has been given ten days to decide how he wants to die.
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Richard Moore, 59, was sentenced to death for the shooting of a shop assistant in Spartanburg County, South Carolina in 1999.
Moore is due to be executed next month but has been told he must decide between the firing squad, lethal injection or electric chair by October 18.
If he refuses to pick an option he will be electrocuted, according to South Carolina state law.
Read more: World's longest-serving death row inmate acquitted after more than half a century in jail
Moore has appealed to the Supreme Court and state governor Henry McMaster to have his execution replaced with a life sentence without parole.
This is unlikely to be successful, however, with no South Carolina governor ever granting clemency to a death row inmate in the modern era.
Moore’s case is unique in that he is the only South Carolina death row inmate to be convicted without a black person on the jury.
59-year-old Moore shot dead the unarmed shop assistant James Mahoney in September 1999.
He had been intending to rob the store.
Moore had initially been unarmed when he entered the shop but ended up using one of Mahoney’s guns in the fatal shooting.
44 people have been executed in the Palmetto state since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1976.
However, a 13-year pause has seen no one executed for some time, with Moore’s November 1 death set to be the first.
