Calls for clemency were ignored. A black man, convicted in the US state of South Carolina (southeast) by an all-white jury for the murder of a cashier in 1999 which he claimed to have committed in self-defense, was executed on Friday, according to American media.
The execution of Richard Moore, 59, is the 21st in the United States since the start of the year. They were all carried out by lethal injection with the exception of two in Alabama (south) by nitrogen inhalation, a method denounced by the UN which compared it to a form of “torture”.
Richard Moore was sentenced to death in 2001 for the murder of James Mahoney, a convenience store cashier whom he entered without a weapon. An altercation broke out, the cashier pulled out a gun and both men were injured, James Mahoney fatally. Richard Moore then left the store after taking money from the cash register.
A petition to spare him had been signed by more than 50,000 people. The initiative received support from a former South Carolina Department of Corrections director, Jon Ozmint, who in a video recording points out “that this would not have been a capital case in most states.” “.
The judge who presided over the trial, Gary Clary, wrote to the governor urging “clemency,” saying that Richard Moore's case was “unique” among South Carolina's death row inmates. His lawyers notably argued that he was the only one of them to have been tried by a jury that did not include any black people.
South Carolina carried out its first execution since 2011 in September. The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 American states. Six others (Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee) observe a moratorium on executions by decision of the governor.
