Hours Before S.C. Man Is Set to Be Executed for Murder Conviction, Key Witness Says He Lied

Columbia, SC – Richard Moore, who is set to be executed on Wednesday for the 1999 murder of James Mahoney, has been granted a stay of execution.

The stay came just hours before Moore was scheduled to die by lethal injection. The South Carolina Supreme Court issued the stay so that the court could review new evidence in the case.

The new evidence includes an affidavit from Moore’s co-defendant, James Dailey, who says that he lied about Moore’s involvement in the murder.

Dailey says that he was offered a plea deal by prosecutors in exchange for his testimony against Moore. Dailey says that he lied under oath when he said that Moore shot Mahoney.

Moore’s lawyers say that the new evidence proves that Moore is innocent and that he should be exonerated.

The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office says that it is reviewing the new evidence and that it will make a decision about whether to proceed with the execution.

Moore’s execution has been stayed five times before. The first stay was granted in 2001, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Moore’s death sentence was unconstitutional because he was intellectually disabled.

Moore is one of several death row inmates in South Carolina who have been granted stays of execution in recent years due to new evidence of innocence.

In 2021, the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of Freddie Owens, who had been on death row for 20 years for the murder of a store clerk.

Owens’ conviction was overturned after a judge ruled that his trial lawyer had provided ineffective assistance by failing to investigate evidence of Owens’ intellectual disability.

The South Carolina Supreme Court also overturned the death sentence of John Bamberg in 2022. Bamberg had been on death row for 18 years for the murder of his grandparents.

Bamberg’s conviction was overturned after a judge ruled that the prosecutor had withheld evidence from the defense that could have been used to support a claim of self-defense.

The stays of execution for Moore, Owens, and Bamberg are a sign that the South Carolina Supreme Court is taking a hard look at the death penalty and the possibility of wrongful convictions.