Citing State’s Lack of Execution Drugs, South Carolina Supreme Court Stays Richard Moore’s Execution

Saying that the state lacked the abil­i­ty to car­ry out a lethal injec­tion, the South Carolina Supreme Court has stayed the sched­uled December 4, 2020 exe­cu­tion of Richard Moore (pic­tured). With no state exe­cu­tions sched­uled for the remain­der of the year, the stay means that states will car­ry out few­er exe­cu­tions in 2020 than in any year since 1983.

In an order issued November 30, the court wrote that it had ​“been advised the South Carolina Department of Corrections does not have, and will not be able to obtain, the drugs required for exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion.” Because of that, the court said, it stayed Moore’s exe­cu­tion ​“until the South Carolina Department of Corrections advis­es the Court it has the abil­i­ty to per­form the exe­cu­tion as required by the law.”

South Carolina law requires the state to car­ry out exe­cu­tions by lethal injec­tion unless the pris­on­er des­ig­nates elec­tro­cu­tion as the method of exe­cu­tion. The state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col uses three drugs: pen­to­bar­bi­tal, pan­curo­ni­um bro­mide, and potas­si­um chlo­ride. The South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) was aware at the time the state supreme court issued Moore’s death war­rant on November 6 that it did not have sup­plies of any of those drugs and refused to inform Moore what drug or com­bi­na­tion of drugs it intend­ed to use to exe­cute him. It has assert­ed that it is legal­ly enti­tled to exe­cute pris­on­ers with a sin­gle lethal dose of pen­to­bar­bi­tal if it can­not obtain the oth­er drugs in its protocol.

Moore’s lawyers, John Blume and Lindsey Vann, said Moore refused to par­tic­i­pate in elect­ing a method of exe­cu­tion because the state had not pro­vid­ed him with infor­ma­tion suf­fi­cient for him to make an intel­li­gent choice. His legal team issued a state­ment after the rul­ing say­ing that they ​“are pleased the exe­cu­tion was stayed but will con­tin­ue their attempts to obtain infor­ma­tion about how the State plans to execute him.” 

Vann described the court’s deci­sion as unprece­dent­ed, say­ing the court had nev­er before had to stay an exe­cu­tion because of the lack of drugs. 

South Carolina has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since 2011. Its sup­ply of exe­cu­tion drugs expired in 2013 and SCDC offi­cials have said they have been unable to obtain new drugs since that time.

In a state­ment, SCDC blamed the state’s inabil­i­ty to obtain exe­cu­tion drugs on the unwill­ing­ness of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies to sell lethal injec­tion drugs for use in exe­cu­tions. The state­ment urged law­mak­ers to the adopt a secre­cy statute to con­ceal the iden­ti­ty of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies who choose to sell lethal injec­tion drugs to the state. The SCDC said that it ​“has been and will con­tin­ue pur­su­ing every pos­si­ble avenue, includ­ing a leg­isla­tive rem­e­dy, to allow the depart­ment the abil­i­ty to car­ry out the sen­tence imposed by the courts and ensure jus­tice will be served in this and future cases.”

In 2017, Governor Henry McMaster and Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling held a press con­fer­ence out­side barbed-wire fences at the Broad River Capital Punishment Facility in Columbia, South Carolina, false­ly claim­ing that the lack of lethal-injec­tion drugs was pre­vent­ing the state from exe­cut­ing death-row pris­on­er Bobby Wayne Stone and urg­ing the leg­is­la­ture to act quick­ly to adopt a sim­i­lar secre­cy statute. In fact, as the South Carolina Attorney General’s office con­ced­ed, Stone had not com­plet­ed his appeals and was enti­tled to a stay of execution.