COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Richard Moore never meant to kill anyone the night he robbed a South Carolina convenience store and the Black man was convicted by a jury with no African Americans, his son and lawyers say as they fight to save the inmate from execution next month.
Moore went unarmed into a Spartanburg County store to rob it in 1999, took a gun from a clerk when it was pointed at him and fatally shot the clerk in the chest as the two struggled.
The inmate's son, Lyndall Moore, said his father is now the only prisoner left on the state's death row convicted by a jury without any Black people.
“He's a human being who made mistakes,” Moore added. “And this particular mistake led to the death of another human being. But his sentence is completely disproportionate to the actual crime.”
South Carolina ended a 13-year pause on executions last month with the lethal injection of Freddie Owens. Moore is set to be executed Nov. 1.
Moore's lawyers have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, saying a lower court should review whether it was fair that no African Americans were on the jury that considered Moore's fate in Spartanburg County, which was 20% Black in the 2000 U.S. Census.
They also hope Moore will become the first South Carolina inmate whose death sentence is commuted to life without parole since executions in the U.S. resumed in 1976.
Only South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster can grant clemency. A former prosecutor, McMaster didn't grant it for Owens and has said previously that he tends to trust juries and the court system.
But Moore's family and lawyers contend executing Moore is too harsh a punishment. In a state where the governor and prison director have made a priority of getting inmates to turn their lives around, Moore's spotless record behind bars and his reputation for helping other inmates merits a reprieve, they say.
“He’s very remorseful and sorry for the horrible, tragic decisions he made in his life. But he spent the past 20 years really trying to make up for that by loving the people he still has in his life," attorney Lindsey Vann said.
Moore killed clerk James Mahoney, 40, a man with some disabilities who loved his family and tried to take care of co-workers.
The prosecutors in Moore's case included Trey Gowdy, a Republican who later served four terms in Congress, and Barry Barnette, currently the solicitor in Spartanburg County. Both have declined comment, with Gowdy saying the 1999 trial speaks for itself.
In asking the jury to sentence Moore to death, Gowdy reminded them of Moore's criminal record for stealing and robbing to gain drug money.
He focused on how after shooting Mahoney, Moore — also shot in the arm in the struggle — walked over the dying clerk's body looking for cash.
“The hopes and the goals and the dreams of a 40-year-old man are coming out of his heart, and the cold, wet drops of blood of a career criminal are dripping on his back,” Gowdy said. “There is a time for mercy, ladies and gentlemen. That time has come and gone.”
Moore's supporters said the trial represents plenty that is wrong about the death penalty in South Carolina, how arbitrary it is because prosecutors can make political points by bringing a number of death penalty cases when the cases don't represent the worst of unrepentant, cruel and heinous criminals.
And then there is the problem of a jury without Black representation, Vann said.
“I’m really struck by the image that I’ve had of Richard’s trial where there’s a white prosecutor, white judge, white defense attorneys, an all-white jury and he’s the only person in the room who is African American and he’s being judged by a jury who has no one who looks like him," Vann said.
Moore has had two prior execution dates, both postponed at a time when the state only had the electric chair and a firing squad. Since then, lethal injection has been added as an option, aided by passage of a law allowing suppliers of lethal injection drugs to remain secret.
Lyndall Moore said the more people get to know his father, the more they realize what a tragedy it would be to take an awful thing Richard Moore did in killing a man and make it worse by taking someone who turned their life around and tried to give something back.
He said he hopes McMaster would take the time to really get to know his father, not just glance at a file on his desk.
“He's not some menacing figure. He’s just a regular dude. ... He’s had a lot of time to think about, to reflect on what's gotten him to this point. He’s very clearly, very obviously regretful of everything,” Lyndall Moore said.
Richard Moore told The Post and Courier of Charleston in 2022 that his lawyers advised him not to reach out to Mahoney's family, but if he did, he would let them know he is "truly, truly sorry that he died at the hands of my actions.”
“I am not the same person I was the night I took Mr. Mahoney’s life. I have grown. I feel as though I still have a story to tell," Moore said.
FILE - This undated photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state's death chamber in Columbia, S.C., including the electric chair, right, and a firing squad chair, left. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP, File)
This photo provided by Justice 360 shows death row inmate Richard Moore at Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center in Columbia, S.C., Aug. 17, 2018. (Justice 360 via AP)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — With the U.S. House narrowly divided, contests for Pennsylvania's seats will be critical to control of the chamber in this year's election, even as the state also plays a big role in determining control of the White House and Senate.
The magic number of pickups is four for Democrats to take control of the House, magnifying the stakes of each House race.
In Pennsylvania, the parties began the year viewing five races as competitive, as Democrats defend their 9-8 advantage in the state's 17-seat delegation.
Adding to the stakes is the fact that Pennsylvania is home to one of the “Biden 16” — the 16 House districts nationally that President Joe Biden won in 2020 but are represented by Republicans.
On the opposite side, Pennsylvania is also home to one of the eight districts that former President Donald Trump won but are represented by Democrats. Five of those Democrats are running for reelection.
Federal Election Commission filings show the candidates and outside groups have poured more than $60 million into the races, with the total expected to climb significantly until polls close on Nov. 5.
For Republicans, there may be room to flip districts: Two incumbent Democrats won by fewer than 2.5 percentage points in 2022.
Here is a look at the five key races:
Four-term Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in Bucks County, just north of Philadelphia, is a top target again for Democrats: He is one of the Biden 16.
But Fitzpatrick, a mild-mannered former FBI agent who took over the seat from his late brother, has a potent winning formula that includes his family’s name recognition and inroads into traditional Democratic voting districts.
He is endorsed by top-tier labor unions, as well as the AFL-CIO, and is running a digital ad calling himself the “No. 1 most bipartisan congressman.”
His opponent is Ashley Ehasz, a former Army helicopter pilot he beat in 2022 by almost 10 points.
Democrats have attacked Fitzpatrick's vote for Trump’s tax-cutting legislation, his opposition to Trump's impeachment and his support for a 20-week abortion ban in 2017.
Fitzpatrick is running an ad saying he backs abortion rights — specifically, Pennsylvania's law that protects the right to an abortion until 24 weeks of gestation, the Roe v. Wade standard of viability — and cites his votes to protect access to IVF and contraception.
Fitzpatrick has more than doubled Ehasz's fundraising and her campaign hasn't attracted any outside groups to spend against Fitzpatrick.
Three-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Susan Wild and six-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright are each a perennial Republican target in their eastern Pennsylvania districts and each has consistently fended off challengers, if by slim margins.
Their races are emerging as the most expensive congressional contests in the state.
Cartwright has the distinction of being one of five Democrats nationally running for reelection in a district won by Trump in 2020 — even though his 8th District seat includes Scranton, the city where Biden was born and that played prominently into Biden's winning presidential campaign.
Wild and Cartwright represent neighboring districts with similar geographies: small cities, suburbs and stretches of rural eastern Pennsylvania that include anthracite coal country. The districts are also similar in the narrow registration that Democrats hold over Republicans.
Challenging Wild in her Allentown-area 7th District seat is state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie. Wild outraised Mackenzie almost 7-to-1 through June 30.
Challenging Cartwright is Rob Bresnahan, a first-time candidate and developer who runs a family construction company.
Cartwright outraised Bresnahan by more than 2-to-1 through June 30, with outside groups pouring more than $11 million into it, according to disclosures to the Federal Election Commission.
The Wild-Mackenzie race isn't far behind, with outside groups spending more than $10 million on it, according to the disclosures.
The hard-right politics of six-term Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry have made him a perennial target for Democrats in a Republican-leaning district around the cities of Harrisburg and York, with deep-red exurbs, rolling farm country and fast-growing suburbs.
Perry was chairman of the Freedom Caucus, a hard-line faction of conservatives that exerts outsize influence on the GOP majority, and was the only lawmaker to have his cellphone seized by FBI agents investigating the web of Trump loyalists who were central to the former president's bid to remain in power after his 2020 reelection loss.
More about Perry's efforts to help Trump emerged since he was last reelected in 2022. Those details included Perry’s efforts to elevate Jeffrey Clark to Trump’s acting attorney general — designed to reverse the Department of Justice’s stance that it had found no evidence of widespread voting fraud that would change the election result.
Perry has not been charged with a crime.
Perry won reelection in 2022 by almost 8 points against a relatively weak opponent. This time around he's facing Janelle Stelson, a longtime local TV news anchor who is a household name.
Stelson has her own baggage: She's a Republican-turned-Democrat who doesn't live in the district. Still, she has relentlessly attacked Perry over his opposition to abortion rights and his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio is being challenged in his western Pennsylvania district by state Rep. Rob Mercuri in a race that hasn't made as much noise as the others.
Deluzio, a freshman, outraised Mercuri by nearly 3-to-1 through June 30 and the race has attracted little interest from outside groups.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 4-3 ratio in the district, which encompasses Pittsburgh's western suburbs and one-time steel towns along the Ohio River in Allegheny County up through Beaver County.
Follow Marc Levy at twitter.com/timelywriter.
FILE - Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., laughs as she speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - Rob Bresnahan speaks at a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza, Aug. 17, 2024, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
FILE - Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., from Pennsylvania's 8th U.S. Congressional District, speaks during a news conference at the Capitol building, in Washington, July 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
