Greenwood High School. Photo: OPMaster ( talk ), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GreenwoodHighKY.JPG)
Duke University
Duke University School of Law
South Carolina House of Representatives. Photo: en:User:Florencebballer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scstatehouse.jpg)
South Carolina Supreme Court. Photo: Abductive, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SupremeCourtSCbuilding.JPG)
Greenwood High School. Photo: OPMaster ( talk ), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GreenwoodHighKY.JPG)
Duke University
Duke University School of Law
South Carolina House of Representatives. Photo: en:User:Florencebballer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scstatehouse.jpg)
South Carolina Supreme Court. Photo: Abductive, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SupremeCourtSCbuilding.JPG)
James E. Moore was born on March 13, 1936, in Laurens, South Carolina, to Roy Ernest Moore and Marie Hill Moore. Laurens, an Upstate South Carolina community, developed as a regional center for government, commerce, education, and legal services.
He married Mary Alicia Deadwyler on January 27, 1963. They had two children, Erin Alicia and Travis Warren.
Moore attended Greenwood High School in Greenwood, South Carolina, graduating in 1954. He then studied at Duke University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1958 and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Duke's law school in 1961. Duke, founded in Durham, North Carolina, developed during the twentieth century into a major research university whose law school combined professional legal education with preparation for public and private legal practice.
After completing his legal education, Moore was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1961. His education provided the foundation for a career that moved from general legal practice into legislative service and the South Carolina judiciary.
Moore began practicing law in Greenwood, South Carolina, in 1961. His early practice included general civil and criminal litigation, and from 1973 to 1976 it also included criminal-defense work. Greenwood was an established judicial and commercial center in South Carolina's Upstate, linking local legal practice with the state's circuit-court system.
He served as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1968 to 1976, representing the period in which he was also practicing law. The South Carolina House is the lower chamber of the state's bicameral General Assembly and participates in legislation, appropriations, and the constitutional process for selecting judges.
In 1976, Moore was elected a judge of the South Carolina Circuit Court. He served on the circuit bench for fifteen years, handling the general trial-court jurisdiction of the state. During that period he chaired the South Carolina Circuit Court Judges Association and its Circuit Court Judges Advocacy Committee and served as vice-chair of the Board of Commissioners on Judicial Standards.
Moore was elected an associate justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court by unanimous vote of the General Assembly in May 1991 and was sworn in on December 30, 1991. He served on the state's highest court from 1991 until his retirement at the end of his term in 2008. During his judicial career he also served as a faculty adviser to the National College of the State Judiciary at the University of Nevada in 1985.
Moore served fifteen years as a judge of the South Carolina Circuit Court before being elected to the state's Supreme Court, demonstrating a progression from trial-court adjudication to the highest appellate court in South Carolina.
As a circuit judge, Moore chaired the South Carolina Circuit Court Judges Association and its Circuit Court Judges Advocacy Committee and served as vice-chair of the Board of Commissioners on Judicial Standards.
Moore served as an associate justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court from 1991 to 2008, contributing to the state's highest court during a period of institutional and legal change.
James E. Moore was a Baptist. His religious outlook emphasized the Christian calling to seek a relationship with God and to share that relationship with others.
Baptist tradition is part of Protestant Christianity and commonly emphasizes the authority of Scripture, personal faith, believer's baptism, congregational life, and religious liberty. Moore's public career in law and the judiciary developed within South Carolina's historically significant Baptist religious environment.
Moore's public life combined elected service in the South Carolina House of Representatives with a long judicial career. He represented Greenwood in the House from 1968 to 1976 before entering the state judiciary, first as a circuit judge and later as an associate justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court.
His political and judicial work unfolded within South Carolina's system of legislative judicial selection, in which the General Assembly elected appellate judges. The state's Supreme Court is the highest court in South Carolina and exercises final authority over the interpretation of state law and constitution. Moore was elected to that court by unanimous legislative vote in 1991.
Moore belonged to the South Carolina Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the American Judicature Society. The South Carolina Bar serves the state's legal profession, the American Bar Association is the principal national professional organization for American lawyers, and the American Judicature Society promoted improvement in the administration of justice and judicial selection.
He also served as a trustee of the Lander Foundation of Lander College in Greenwood. The foundation supported the educational mission and institutional development of Lander, a South Carolina liberal-arts college.
Moore married Mary Alicia Deadwyler on January 27, 1963. They had two children, Erin Alicia and Travis Warren.
