South Carolina officials eye single drug for execution plan

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – The state of South Carolina says it could execute a man scheduled to die next week with a lethal dose of just one drug if officials cannot get ahold of all three drugs the procedure calls for.

Richard Moore (SCDC)

Attorneys for inmate Richard Bernard Moore say they will continue to mount legal challenges ahead of Dec. 4, when Moore is scheduled to be executed.

Moore has spent nearly two decades on death row for his conviction in the 1999 killing a convenience store clerk in Spartanburg.

The state’s usual injection protocol calls for three drugs: pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. But the corrections agency has said it has not had the drugs in stock since 2013, when its last supplies expired.