On this
date, June 17, 2015, Nine people are killed in a
mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Although the
writer is a death penalty opponent, he conceded that Dylann Roof deserves to
die for the crime. He is similar to Alan Dershowitz
who despite being a staunch death penalty opponent, felt that the Boston Bomber deserved to die too.
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Dylann Roof needs a needle
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Dylann Roof
is the best argument we have for the death penalty
December 13,
2016
Like so many
Americans, I have found myself in recent years on a journey when it comes
to capital punishment.
I used to be
an ardent supporter of the death penalty. Twenty years ago, I would have confidently
argued that the only reason there is any doubt about the deterrent effect of
capital punishment is that we execute too few murderers and do so too slowly. I
would have waved away any anecdote about innocent people being released from
death row by saying something like, "The fact that someone who was not
guilty did not die is not an argument against capital punishment."
But the
number of innocent people freed from death row — at 156 and climbing, according to the anti-capital
punishment Death Penalty Information Center — rose to the point where I began
to feel doubt. Other concerns also gnawed at me. I am both pro-life and
substantially libertarian in my politics, combining a belief in the sanctity of
human life and a skepticism of government power that sits uneasily with support
for capital punishment.
I no longer
believe in executions as a routine punishment for the worst crimes, even
homicide. The criminal justice system is too flawed and in need of reform. Too
few Americans, especially in communities of color, have confidence in the equal
protection of our laws.
Yet my
journey has not ended at the same destination as others who have raised similar
questions about the death penalty. I still do not believe capital punishment is
inherently unjust in principle, even if I believe its frequent application is
always likely to become so in practice. And some crimes are so heinous, there
is no other just punishment for them.
For an
example, look no further than the trial of Dylann Roof. Roof has confessed to
murdering nine innocent Americans during a prayer service at a historic black
church in Charleston, South Carolina. He killed them in cold blood while they prayed,
in premeditated fashion, because of the hatred burning in his heart.
Many of the
common objections to the death penalty do not apply in Roof's case. There is no
doubt about his guilt. "I went to that church in Charleston and I did
it," he confessed with a laugh. "Did you shoot them?" a law
enforcement officer asked. "Yes," Roof replied, laughing again.
Sentencing
Roof to death would not illustrate structural racism. Quite the opposite. It
would enhance racial justice and signify progress in a region of the country
where the state did not always protect African Americans from racist murderers.
It would be a public affirmation that black lives matter.
Wielding the
noose infrequently makes its occasional uses a more powerful statement of our
society's intolerance of certain acts of evil without allowing it to devalue
life itself. Consider the countries that do not normally have the death penalty
but executed Nazi war criminals. Osama bin Laden's death would have been an act
of justice even if he could have been apprehended peacefully.
Murder is a
gruesome and barbaric business. Its perpetrators deserve the ultimate
punishment. But a society must try to balance its power and right to impose
that penalty with its need to avoid becoming an accomplice to murder itself.
That's
admittedly not an easy balance to reach. One of the other cases that has kept
me from becoming an unadulterated opponent of the death penalty is the murder
of a friend's grandmother. A sweet 94-year-old woman, she was brutally beaten to
death by a young man who robbed and attempted to rape her in her own home.
The poor
woman had lived nearly ten decades in peace, seeking only to live out the rest
of her days with dignity. Instead her life ended in violence and terror. No
other punishment seems adequate for such a crime, even though the perpetrator
is not eligible for capital punishment under current legal precedent due to his
age, a teenager being tried as an adult.
It is
possible so many outrageous cases could be found that if we imposed death
sentences in all of them, we would quickly be back to our current system of
mass executions. Even in Roof's case, it feels wrong to write about how his
crimes warrant capital punishment with Christmas music playing in the
background, hours removed from church.
But that
might be exactly what the country needs: a reluctant hangman carefully guarding
their occasional acts of justice against degenerating into injustice.
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Let
them stew in their own grease (or juice). – Otto Von Bismarck
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