A State Supreme Court official has set April 29 as the execution date for Richard Bernard Moore, a 57-year-old man who has spent more than two decades on death row after being convicted of the murder of confectioner Jamie Stein. Moore could choose between the electric chair and the execution squad, two options for death row inmates after lawmakers amended the state death penalty law last year in a bid to work around a 10-year moratorium on executions. in the penitentiary service of the impossibility of supplying lethal injectable drugs. The new law made the electric chair the state’s main means of execution, while allowing inmates to choose between shooting death or lethal injection if these methods were available. The State Correctional Facility said last month that it had completed the development of executive execution protocols and completed $ 53,600 renovations to the Columbia death chamber by installing a metal chair with 15-foot-wide wall-mounted brackets. In case of execution of an executive detachment, three volunteer snipers – all employees of the Correctional Department – will have rifles full of real ammunition, with their weapons trained in the heart of the detainee. A hood will be placed over the detainee’s head, who will be given the opportunity to make one last statement. South Carolina is one of eight states that continue to use the electric chair and one of four that allow a shooting squad, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. Moore is one of 35 men sentenced to death in South Carolina. He exhausted his federal appeals in 2020 and the state Supreme Court rejected another appeal this week. Moore’s lawyer, Lindsey Vann, said Thursday she would ask the court to suspend the execution. The state last scheduled an execution for Moore in 2020, which was later delayed after prison officials said they could not procure lethal drugs for injection. During Moore’s trial in 2001, prosecutors said Moore entered the store looking for money to support his cocaine addiction and got into an argument with Mahoney, who pulled a pistol that Moore wrestled with. Mahoney pulled a second gun and a skirmish ensued. Mahoney shot Moore in the arm and Moore shot Mahoney in the chest. Prosecutors said Moore left a trail of blood in the store as he searched for cash, passing Mahoney twice. At the time, Moore claimed he was acting in self-defense after Mahoney pulled out his first weapon. Moore’s supporters have argued that his crime does not reach the level of the death penalty in other states. Appeals attorneys told him that because Moore did not bring a gun to the store, he could not have intended to kill anyone when he entered. South Carolina’s last execution was in 2011, when Jeffrey Motts, who was sentenced to death for strangling a relative while serving a life sentence for another murder, dropped his appeals and chose the death ward. Copyright © 2022 by the Associated Press. All rights reserved.
