A federal judge has ruled that Gov. Henry McMaster will retain his right to be the final judge of clemency for a death row inmate even though he once claimed to have no intention of doing so.
“The Court is confident... Governor McMaster will give full, thoughtful, and careful consideration to any clemency petition filed by Moore, giving both comprehensive and individualized attention to the unique circumstances of his case,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis in a ruling issued Monday.
The ruling is a setback for Richard Moore, who sought to strip the power to grant clemency from McMaster . Attorneys for Moore instead asked that Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette review Moore’s clemency application.
Moore, 59, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 1. He was sentenced to death in 2001 for shooting and killing James Mahoney, a Spartanburg County store clerk, during an armed robbery two years prior.
In 2022, McMaster told reporters following a stay in Moore’s execution by the state Supreme Court that he did not plan to commute Moore’s sentence.
“I’ve seen the record, and there have been many hearings up and down, motions, and this penalty is a very strong response to criminal activity — but it is a necessary response,” McMaster said.
As a result of these statements — and McMaster’s previous post as the state’s elected attorney general, when he defend Moore’s conviction on appeal — Moore’s attorneys argued that McMaster was biased against Moore. By pre-judging Moore’s request for clemency, cMaster was violating Moore’s due process right to have his clemency petition heard by “an impartial, open-minded, and unbiased decision-maker,” his attorneys argued.
But in her ruling Monday declining to issue an injunction against McMaster, Lewis wrote that she believed McMaster would give “full, thoughtful, and careful consideration to any clemency petition filed by Moore, giving both comprehensive and individualized attention to the unique circumstances of his case.”
Legal precedent did not support removing a governor’s power to grant clemency, contained in the state constitution, just because he had served as an attorney general, Lewis wrote. Additionally, the judge argued that she believed sufficient time had elapsed between when McMaster made his statements and Moore’s scheduled execution.
“Governor McMaster’s statement was made nearly two-and-a-half years ago. At the time, Moore had yet to file a petition proposing any grace-oriented grounds for clemency, and the only basis upon which Governor McMaster could evaluate Moore’s sentence was through his knowledge of Moore’s exhaustive legal proceedings, which had thus far been unfavorable to Moore and served only to reaffirm his sentence,” Lewis’ wrote.
Lewis’ ruling came after she took the extraordinary step of requesting the governor to submit an affidavit to the court swearing that he would carefully consider Moore’s clemency request.
In a carefully worded affidavit, McMaster wrote that “understanding that executive clemency is purely a matter of mercy and grace within the exclusive authority and solemn discretion bestowed up the Governor alone... it is and has been my intention and commitment to take care to understand the issues presented, including those from my review and consideration of applications, petition, and request for clemency presented to me by or on behalf of a condemned inmate.”
Moore’s lawyers told The State that they intend to appeal the decision to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Executions resumed in South Carolina last month following a 13 year pause that occurred when the state ran out of the drugs used in lethal injections. On Sept. 20, Freddie Owens was executed by lethal injection after McMaster declined clemency petition.
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