South Carolina inmate picks firing squad over electric chair as execution looms, calling both options "unconstitutional"

A South Carolina prisoner scheduled to be the first man executed in the state in more than a decade has decided to die by firing squad rather than in the electric chair later this month, according to court documents filed Friday.

Richard Moore, 57, is the also first state prisoner to face the choice of execution methods after a law went into effect last year making electrocution the default but giving inmates the option to face three prison workers with rifles instead.

Moore has spent more than two decades on death row after being convicted of the 1999 killing of convenience store clerk James Mahoney in Spartanburg. If executed as scheduled on April 29, he would be the first person put to death in the state since 2011.

This 2019 photo shows the electric chair previously used by the South Carolina Department of Corrections. Kinard Lisbon/South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP

The new law was prompted by the decadelong break, which corrections officials attribute to an inability to procure the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections.

In a written statement, Moore said he didn't concede that either method was legal or constitutional, but that he more strongly opposed death by electrocution and only chose the firing squad because he was required to make a choice.

"I believe this election is forcing me to choose between two unconstitutional methods of execution, and I do not intend to waive any challenges to electrocution or firing squad by making an election," Moore said in the statement.

Richard Moore South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP

Moore's attorneys have asked the state Supreme Court to delay his death while another court determines if either available method is cruel and unusual punishment. The attorneys argue prisons officials aren't trying hard enough to get the lethal injection drugs, instead forcing prisoners to choose between two more barbaric methods.

His lawyers are also asking the state Supreme Court to delay the execution so the U.S. Supreme Court can review whether Moore's death sentence was a disproportionate punishment compared with similar crimes. The state justices denied a similar appeal last week.

However, Associate Justice Kaye Hearn wrote a blunt 14-page dissent.

"The death penalty should be reserved for those who commit the most heinous crimes in our society, and I do not believe Moore's crimes rise to that level," Hearn wrote.

The state corrections agency said last month that it finished developing protocols for firing squad executions and completed $53,600 in renovations on the death chamber in Columbia, installing a metal chair with restraints that faces a wall with a rectangular opening 15 feet (4.6 meters) away. In the case of a firing squad execution, three volunteer prison workers will train their rifles on the condemned prisoner's heart.

South Carolina is one of eight states to still use the electric chair and one of four to allow a firing squad, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

Moore is one of 35 men on South Carolina's death row. In 2020, South Carolina postponed Moore's execution after the state could not obtain the drugs to carry out lethal injection. Moore was given the option but declined the alternative execution method: electrocution.

During Moore's 2001 trial, prosecutors said Moore entered the store looking for money to support his cocaine habit and got into a dispute with Mahoney, who drew a pistol that Moore wrestled away from him.

Mahoney pulled a second gun, and a gunfight ensued. Mahoney shot Moore in the arm, and Moore shot Mahoney in the chest. Prosecutors said Moore left a trail of blood through the store as he looked for cash, stepping twice over Mahoney.

At the time, Moore claimed that he acted in self-defense after Mahoney drew the first gun.

Moore's supporters have argued that his crime doesn't rise to the level of a death penalty offense. His appeals lawyers have said that because Moore didn't bring a gun into store, he couldn't have intended to kill someone when he walked in.

South Carolina's last execution was in 2011, when Jeffrey Motts, on death row for strangling a cellmate while serving a life sentence for another murder, abandoned his appeals and opted for the death chamber.