SC Supreme Court orders execution of inmate Richard Moore on Nov. 1 (2025)

COLUMBIA — The state Supreme Court has released a death warrant for condemned inmate Richard Moore, with an execution date of Nov. 1, according to documents shared by his attorneys.

The order, issued on the morning of Oct. 4, comes two weeksafter the execution of Freddie Owens, 46, the first prisoner South Carolina has executed after a 13-year hiatus.

Moore, 59, was convicted ofmurder for fatally shooting a convenience store clerk, James Mahoney, while robbing Nikki's Speedy Mart in Spartanburg County in September 1999.

Prosecutors said Moore was looking for money to support a drug habit. Authorities said he went into the store unarmed and killed Mahoney during a shootout, after taking one of the clerk's two guns. A local sheriff's deputy later found Moore bleeding from the arm.

Moore was sentenced to death in October 2001. His execution was initially scheduled in 2022, and he had chosen to die by firing squad, but the S.C. Supreme Court postponed the executionto release a more detailed order.

Defense attorneys for Moore, who is Black, have said his death sentence reflects the racial discrimination that still exists in the court system.

In a written statement after Moore's execution order was issued, his legal team from Justice 360said Moore is the last person on South Carolina’s death row to have been sentenced by an all-White jury. The case prosecutor, his attorneys said, struck all eligible African Americans from the jury pool to obtain a death sentence in the case, which involved a White victim.

His attorneys also said that no other capital case in the state involved an unarmed defendant who defended himself when the victim threatened him with a weapon.

"Moore's execution would not be an act of justice," their statement reads. "It would be an arbitrary act of vengeance."

Last week, Moore's lead attorney, Lindsey Vann, filed a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to review whether the removal of Black potential jurors from Moore's trial was unconstitutionally based on race. The high court has not yet issued a response.

Under state law, Moore hasto specify his preferred method of execution 14 days before the date. South Carolina provides the options of lethal injection, electric chair or firing squad — provisions that the state’s highest court upheld in July following legal challenges from inmates.

Moore is among five death row prisoners that the state Supreme Court earlier said had exhausted their main avenues of appeals and could be executed after Owens.

Moore’s name appears first on the list, followed by men with cases from across the state: Marion Bowman Jr. (Dorchester County), Brad Sigmon (Greenville County), Mikahl Mahdi (Calhoun County) and Steven Bixby (Abbeville County).

The S.C. Supreme Court has set 35 days as the minimum gap between the issuance of execution warrants, which translates into the same time interval between executions.

Owens, found guilty of fatally shooting a Greenville convenience store clerk in 1997, was put to death by lethal injection on Sept. 20.

The state's death row unit, as well as its death chamber, are housed at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.

There are 31 men on the state's death row, including one imprisoned in California.