Federal Court Dismisses Claims of Bias and Rules South Carolina Governor Has Sole Authority in Richard Moore’s Clemency Case

On October 21, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has the sole pow­er to grant clemen­cy to Richard Moore. In response to alle­ga­tions of bias pre­sent­ed by Mr. Moore’s coun­sel, Judge Lewis said that “[t]he Court is con­fi­dent… Governor McMaster will give full, thought­ful, and care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion to any clemen­cy peti­tion filed by Moore, giv­ing both com­pre­hen­sive and indi­vid­u­al­ized atten­tion to the unique cir­cum­stances of his case.” This deci­sion comes ahead of Mr. Moore’s sched­uled November 1, 2024. State law now forces pris­on­ers to choose their method of exe­cu­tion or be exe­cut­ed with the default method of elec­tro­cu­tion; Mr. Moore select­ed lethal injec­tion as his exe­cu­tion method.  

Mr. Moore’s lawyers had asked the court to stay his exe­cu­tion and des­ig­nate clemen­cy pow­er to the state parole board, which is respon­si­ble for grant­i­ng clemen­cy in non-cap­i­tal cas­es, or anoth­er neu­tral par­ty, such as the lieu­tenant gov­er­nor. Mr. Moore’s peti­tion alleged that Gov. McMaster could not rea­son­ably act as a neu­tral par­ty in this case giv­en his pre­vi­ous role as attor­ney gen­er­al, as well as state­ments made in 2022 indi­cat­ing he had ​“no inten­tion” of grant­i­ng clemen­cy to Mr. Moore ahead of a pos­si­ble exe­cu­tion date. ​“For Moore to receive clemen­cy, McMaster would have to renounce years of his own work and that of his for­mer col­leagues in the Office of the Attorney General,” Mr. Moore’s petition said. 

Judge Lewis found that Gov. McMaster’s pre­vi­ous posi­tion as attor­ney gen­er­al did not pre­clude him from mak­ing a clemen­cy deci­sion in this case, nor did his ear­li­er state­ment. ​“Governor McMaster’s state­ment was made near­ly two-and-a-half years ago. At the time, Moore had yet to file a peti­tion propos­ing any grace-ori­ent­ed grounds for clemen­cy, and the only basis upon which Governor McMaster could eval­u­ate Moore’s sen­tence was through his knowl­edge of Moore’s exhaus­tive legal pro­ceed­ings, which had thus far been unfa­vor­able to Moore and served only to reaf­firm his sen­tence,” Judge Lewis wrote.  

Mr. Moore, a Black man, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1999 killing of a store clerk. He had entered the store unarmed, intend­ing to rob it. After being threat­ened by the clerk who had weapons, Mr. Moore defend­ed him­self, result­ing in the death of the clerk James Mahoney. Lawyers for Mr. Moore high­light that he is the only South Carolina death row pris­on­er to have been sen­tenced by a jury with no Black jurors, and if exe­cut­ed, he would be the first put to death in the state’s mod­ern death penal­ty era who was unarmed ini­tial­ly and sub­se­quent­ly defend­ed him­self when threat­ened.  

Earlier this year, South Carolina resumed exe­cu­tions after 13 years, a pause the state attrib­ut­es to its dif­fi­cul­ty obtain­ing lethal injec­tion drugs. On September 20, 2024, the state exe­cut­ed Freddie ​“Khalil” Owens, despite a codefendant’s last-minute admis­sion that he was not present at the crime scene. Gov. McMaster did not grant Mr. Owens clemen­cy, nor has any South Carolina gov­er­nor done so dur­ing the mod­ern death penal­ty era. If exe­cut­ed, Mr. Moore would be the sec­ond per­son exe­cut­ed by the state this year. The state’s next ten­ta­tive­ly sched­uled exe­cu­tion is that of Marion Bowman on November 29, 2024. Three oth­er death row pris­on­ers who have exhaust­ed their appeals are expect­ed to receive exe­cu­tion dates five-weeks apart.