Richard Moore was executed Friday, anti-death penalty advocates didn’t throw in the towel

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — On Friday, the state of South Carolina executed a second death row inmate after regaining the ability to carry out those death sentences after more than a decade.

Richard Moore, 59, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:24 Friday evening.

Moore was convicted of murdering James Mahoney, a convenience store worker in Spartanburg County, in 1999.

Governor McMaster denied the request for clemency, continuing the long-standing tradition of South Carolina Governors refusing to commute death sentences.

On Friday, anti-death penalty advocates lined up outside the prison gates of Broad River Correctional Institution to picket and protest the execution.

While this is still happening, they are still fighting in hopes of making a change.

“My heart sank. I don’t even know them, I don’t even know Richard, and I’m heartbroken. Look what the government did to a human being,” said Suezann Bosler, an emotional anti-death penalty advocate.

St. “We cannot stop killing by killing,” Father Michael OKere of Martin de Porres Church told WACH FOX News.

Lawyers argue that Moore was not given a fair trial that would result in the death penalty.

Event organizer and Executive Director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Rev. “He is the last person in the state of South Carolina to be sentenced to death by an all-white jury,” Hillary Taylor said. “If Richard’s trial took place now, he would never have been tried for the death penalty.”

These advocates believe they are gaining momentum in their fight as they brought more than 50,000 signatures begging for clemency to Governor McMaster’s office this week.

There are four more executions planned in the next few months, and these groups say they are ready to stop them.

“We are not going to sit back and wait for this to continue. We will continue to try to abolish the death penalty until it is abolished in all states with the death penalty in the remaining 27 states,” Bosler said.