Death row inmate told to decide how he wants to be executed --[Reported by Umva mag]

A death row inmate facing execution next month has been given a deadline to choose which way he wants to be killed.

Richard Moore, 59, was given the death penalty for shooting a shop worker with one of his own guns during a store robbery in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, in September 1999.

He has been given until October 18 to decide whether he would prefer to face a firing squad, a lethal injection or the electric chair when his sentence is carried out on November 1.

If he opts not to make a decision, he will be electrocuted by default in accordance with state law.

Moore is appealing to the US Supreme Court to stop his execution. He also plans to ask Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, for mercy and to reduce his sentence to life without parole.

No South Carolina governor has ever granted clemency in the modern era of the death penalty.

The defendant, who is Black, is the only man on South Carolina’s death row to have been convicted by a jury that did not have any African Americans, his lawyers said.

If he is executed, he would also be the first person put to death in the state in modern times who was initially unarmed before defending themselves when threatened with a weapon, they added.

Moore has no violations on his prison record and offered to work to help rehabilitate other prisoners as long as he is behind bars.

South Carolina has put 44 inmates to death since the death penalty was restarted in the US in 1976.

In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Nine states have put more inmates to death.

But since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled.

The state had 63 condemned inmates in early 2011. It currently has 31.

About 20 inmates have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.

Last month, five prisoners were executed in the space of just a week – the highest number in two decades.

They included Marcellus Williams, 55, whose plea for clemency was backed by several high-profile figures, such as British entrepreneur Richard Branson.

Another death row inmate called his execution ‘assisted suicide’ when he was killed by the state for the horrific murder of his three-month baby.

Travis Mullis, 38, molested, stamped on and strangled his son Alijiah after trying to rape another child in January 2008.

In his final statement, he said: ‘I don’t regret this decision to legally expedite this process.

‘I do regret the decision to take the life of my son. It was my decision that put me here.’

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