Richard Moore, 57, is also the first state prisoner to face the choice of execution method, after a law came into force last year that makes electric shock the default and gives inmates the option to treat three prison staff with rifles. Moore spent more than two decades in death after being convicted of the 1999 murder of convenience store employee James Mahoney in Spartanburg. If executed as scheduled on April 29, he would be the first person to be killed in the state since 2011. The new law was triggered by a decade-long break in which correctional workers attributed the inability to supply the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections. In a written statement, Moore said he did not acknowledge that either method was legal or constitutional, but that he strongly opposed death by electric shock and chose only the executive branch because he had 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 give up any provocations for electric shock or shooting by holding elections,” Moore said in a statement. Moore’s lawyers have asked the state Supreme Court to delay his death, while another court is judging whether any of the available methods are harsh and unusual punishment. Lawyers argue that prison officials are not trying hard enough to get the lethal injectable drugs, instead forcing detainees to choose between two more barbaric methods. His lawyers are also asking the state Supreme Court to delay the execution so that the U.S. Supreme Court can review whether Moore’s death sentence was a disproportionate sentence compared to similar crimes. State judges rejected a similar appeal last week. The State Correctional Facility said last month that it had completed the development of protocols for executions of the executive branch and completed $ 53,600 renovations to the Columbia death chamber by installing a metal chair with 4-legged wall-mounted brackets. 6 meters) away. In the event of an execution, three volunteer prison workers will train their rifles in the heart of the convicted prisoner. South Carolina is one of eight states that still use the electric chair and one of four that allow a shooting squad, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
