Jurors, judges and former prison warden are all asking for mercy for the convicted South Carolina inmate

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina death row inmate Richard Moore In a petition for clemency filed Wednesday, more than 20 people asked the governor to spare his life, just two days before he is scheduled to die by lethal injection for the 1999 killing of a store employee.

There are two jurors and the judge from his original trial. There is a former director of the state prison system who says Moore deeply regrets his crime and is a force for good behind bars, both for his fellow inmates and his children and grandchildren.

Also seeking clemency are six childhood friends, five relatives, several former lawyers who said Moore is still checking on their families after they failed to keep him off death row, and the partner of a psychologist whose examination of Moore went into depth Friendship led them both, loudly Moore’s petition.

“I have often wondered why Richard would rather spend his life in a prison cell than end the hell he faces every day. When I asked him, he told me he now had something to offer the world,” Ravi Walsh wrote 42 pages of letters sent to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, the only person with the power to get Moore off death row.

No governor has done that offered mercy to one of the 44 prisoners executed in South Carolina since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to be reinstated in 1976. No other state has executed so many prisoners without sparing anyone.

McMaster has promised to check Thoroughly review Moore’s petition. As usual, the governor has said he will not announce his decision until minutes before the execution, scheduled for Friday at 6 p.m. EDT.

Moore’s lawyers said clemency is an act of grace and mercy and should focus primarily on what the 59-year-old Moore has done since he shot James Mahoney in a shooting at a Spartanburg supermarket in September 1999.

Moore is a born-again Christian who mentors his fellow inmates on isolated death row, and if his sentence is reduced to life without parole, his good influence may spread to many more prisoners, said Jon Ozmint, the former director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections 2003 to 2011.

“His history and lifestyle would enable him to be an influential force for good in the general population, with the ability to have a positive influence on the most recalcitrant and hopeless young offenders,” Ozmint wrote, adding that he would seek the death penalty advocate has never advocated for mercy on behalf of another inmate.

The petition includes a video with excerpts from an interview with Moore.

“It’s definitely a part of my life that I would like to change. I took a life. I took someone’s life. I destroyed the family of the deceased,” Moore said. “I pray for the forgiveness of this special family.”

Prosecutors and Mahoney’s family did not speak publicly in the weeks leading up to the execution. In the past, Mahoney’s family has said they have suffered deeply and want justice to be served.

Moore’s clemency petition said his lawyers did not provide him with the best defense at his 2001 trial. They include a different analysis of the crime scene as well as Moore’s version of events, which shows that the clerk pointed a gun at Moore after the two argued because he was 12 cents short of what he wanted to buy.

Moore said he grabbed the gun out of the clerk’s hand and Mahoney pulled out a second gun. Moore was shot in the arm and fired back, killing Mahoney with a bullet to the chest. Moore then went behind the counter and stole approximately $1,300.

No one else on South Carolina’s death row began their crime unarmed and without intent to kill, Moore’s current lawyers said.

Ozmint and others said the death penalty should be reserved for the worst crimes and not imposed arbitrarily. Current attorney Barry Barnette, who was an assistant prosecutor in Moore’s case, did not seek the death penalty several years ago Todd Kohlheppwho killed seven people, including a woman whom he raped and tortured for days.

Lawyers for Moore, who is black, have also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution so a lower court can consider whether it was fair that no African-Americans were on the jury that decided Moore’s fate in Spartanburg County decided where 20% black people lived in the 2000 US Census.

Moore’s son and daughter said he remained interested in their lives. He now has grandchildren who he sees on video calls. Several letter writers mentioned that it would harm them if Moore were removed from their lives.

“He makes no apologies for his actions – his only interest is to stay alive so that he can serve as a role model for those most at risk of following a similar path, and so that he can play a role as much as possible his family’s life,” said son Lyndall Moore.

In a clemency video, Ozmint said that as he paid the prisoners his final visit before their execution, he would tell them that he would “see them on the other side.” He said the most compelling reason to show mercy to Richard Moore was that he would be at peace with whatever was decided – whether he was in heaven or left on earth to do good deeds.

“I know I will see Richard on the other side. I just don’t know when that will be,” Ozmint said. “I hope that Governor McMaster will give Richard the rest of his life so that he can advocate for the lives of others.”