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Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Authorities in South Carolina on Friday night carried out the execution of Richard Moore despite pleas for clemency to the state's Republican governor. Prison officials confirmed Moore was pronounced dead following lethal injection at 6:24 p.m. EDT at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C.
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South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declined to intervene following a request by Moore and his legal team for clemency, paving the way for the execution.
Several of Moore's supporters, including two former jury members and the judge who presided over his murder trial, signed a petition calling for McMaster to commute the death sentence to life in prison.
McMaster was expected to wait until the last minute before making a decision.
Moore was sentenced to die for the 1999 killing of convenience store clerk James Mahoney during a robbery in Spartanburg S.C.
He was convicted in the trial.
Lawyers have argued the process was unfair because there were no African Americans on the 12-person jury.
Supporters have also argued trial lawyers erred in not pushing a self defense narrative. Moore and Mahoney initially struggled and each ended up with a firearm, with both men being shot at the time.
Moore was hit in the arm and left the scene.
"To the family of Mr. James Mahoney, I am deeply sorry for the pain and sorrow I caused you all. To my children and granddaughters, I love you, and I am so proud of you. Thank you for the joy you have brought to my life," Moore said, when given an opportunity to speak his last words, according to South Carolina Department of Corrections officials.
Moore's legal team and those who signed the petition argued his case does not meet the requirements for capital murder.
Prosecutors contend Moore showed no remorse, leaving the scene of the robbery with $1,400 in cash and failing to call for help.
Moore was originally scheduled to be executed in 2022, choosing death by firing squad rather than the electric chair.
South Carolina paused executions in 2011 when they could not get the lethal injection drugs required.
The state executed Freddie Owens in September, the first death sentence carried out in South Carolina in over a decade.
"There's no question in my mind that this wouldn't have been a death penalty case in most counties," former South Carolina Department of Corrections Director John Ozmint told the Greenville News in an interview earlier in the week.
