Richard Moore
Richard Moore, 59, was executed by lethal injection at the Broad River prison complex in Columbia, South Carolina, on November 1, 2024, after Governor Henry McMaster declined to grant clemency. Family, friends and pastors described him as a changed man who loved God, doted on his grandchildren and mentored other prisoners, and his daughter called him a good man. Clemency requests from jurors, the trial judge, a former state prison director and others did not succeed. His lawyers argued that his sentence was racially discriminatory and that he acted in self-defense, and they said the execution exposed serious flaws in the state's death penalty system. Prison officials said he was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m., and attorneys for Moore and the state have given conflicting medical accounts of whether he was conscious during the execution, with his attorneys' anesthesiologist saying fluid in his lungs suggests he was aware of drowning.
Cause of death, as reported: Executed by the state. His lawyers argued the death sentence was unjust, citing racial discrimination by an all-white jury, and jurors and the trial judge urged clemency.
Reported by: South Carolina Department of Corrections (the agency that held him); media witnesses.
Sources (20)
- South Carolina executes death row inmate despite pleas from jurors and a judge to spare his life
- Death row inmate Richard Moore executed by lethal injection in South Carolina
- Richard Moore executed in South Carolina, second inmate this year
- South Carolina executes Richard Moore despite appeals for mercy
- South Carolina executes Richard Moore despite objections from judge and jurors
- Live updates: Richard Moore dies by lethal injection after SC governor denies clemency.
- SC Inmate executed in controversial murder case
- Richard Moore executed in South Carolina after governor rejects clemency arguments
- Death row inmate Richard Moore's striking last words to family ahead of execution over 1991 murder
- South Carolina man executed by lethal injection for 1999 murder hours after final plea for mercy
- SC inmate is executed despite calls for clemency from jurors, trial judge
- South Carolina executes Richard Moore despite broadly supported plea to cut sentence
- US: Black man convicted by all-white jury executed
- Richard Moore’s Final Words Before South Carolina Execution
- Black Man Convicted By All-White Jury Executed In South Carolina
- I witnessed Richard B. Moore’s execution in SC. Here’s what I experienced and saw
- The Death Penalty in 2024: Executions
- In SC jail, suspects risk being ‘stabbed, raped and beaten,’ DOJ finds
- Condemned inmate worried South Carolina needed 2 lethal injections doses at last execution
- Another SC inmate chooses firing squad execution, 3 weeks after state's first use of the method