Last week, Dylann Roof was convicted on a 33-count federal indictment for shooting and killing nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015.
The trial and conviction brought little controversy. Hearing testimony from the prosecution, including statements from family members of the victims and video footage of Roof confessing to the crimes, the jury came back with a “guilty” verdict after only about two hours of deliberations. Considering the gravity and severity of the case, these proceedings seem relatively straightforward.
Not so fast. The judicial controversy is just beginning in the court case of Dylann Roof. On January 3, 2017, the federal sentencing deliberations for Roof will begin, and the question at hand is: life in prison or the death penalty?
It is rare for the U.S. Department of Justice to pursue a death penalty case, and Roof’s defense team said earlier in the trial that if the federal prosecutors agreed to drop the death penalty, Roof would plead guilty. This offer was not accepted and Roof was ultimately convicted on December 15, 2016.
This is even more complex than the question of whether Roof should live or die. Roof is facing the death penalty in two separate cases- murder in South Carolina state court, and hate crimes resulting in death in federal court. The federal court decision has already been handed down, while the state court’s trial is set to begin in mid-January. Prosecutors in both cases are seeking execution, but there are many moral, legal, and ethical obstacles to overcome. This is also the first time since 1988 that someone has faced the death penalty at both the state and federal levels.
Should Dylann Roof be executed? What happens if the state and federal trials reach different verdicts? These are the questions that must be answered. Is this an eye-for-an-eye situation, where the crime is so heinous that the perpetrator must pay for it with his life, or is it unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral for the court system to decide who lives and dies? Clearly, Dylann Roof made that determination when he open-fired at the Bible study session, but should the courts be held to a higher moral standard, or are some crimes just too despicable?
Once again, Americans find themselves following the events surrounding the deaths of innocent African Americans. Given the current climate of political and racial tension in this country, how will the new administration handle race relations in this country, given the racially-motivated threats and violence since November 9th?
This case does not begin and end with Dylann Roof and his nine victims and their families. It stretches far and wide, from the ethics and legality of the death penalty to the legal complications of multiple trials, to racial tensions again rising up to the front pages of our newspapers and the trending topics on social media, and finally to how our new government administration will handle what the future has in store for race and justice in our country.
