South Carolina prison officials told death row inmate Richard Moore on Tuesday that he can choose between a firing squad, the electric chair and lethal injection for his Nov. 1 execution.

State law gives Moore until Oct. 18 to decide or by default he will be electrocuted. His execution would mark the second in South Carolina after a 13-year pause due to the state not being able to obtain a drug needed for lethal injection.

Moore, 59, is facing the death penalty for the September 1999 shooting of store clerk James Mahoney. Moore went into the Spartanburg County store unarmed to rob it and the two ended up in a shootout after Moore was able to take one of Mahoney’s guns. Moore was wounded, while Mahoney died from a bullet to the chest.

  • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    If his crime was that bad, why wait 25 years to execute him? The guy also didn’t go into the store armed and looking to kill someone, he just wanted money for drugs, but then had a gun pulled on him and then exchanged shots with the shop keeper who pulled yet another firearm out. If this had been Zimmerman or Rittenhouse they might have called it “self defense”. The guy seems more than willing to accept responsibility for his actions and remain in prison for the rest of his natural life. My hot take is to let him do as he suggested, remain in prison and help to rehabilitate those he can, kinda like the idea of what prison was supposed to do. If they need to kill inmates, why not save it for the people that have no remorse for what they have done?