Considering that there’s pretty much a 0% possibility of Roof being innocent, I don’t see how that applies to executing him.
It would accomplish the death of Dylan Roof, which is exactly what it’s intended to do.
The state isn’t withdrawing his right to live. He has forfeited it by indicating through his actions that he has no respect for laws that prevent our civilization from slipping into barbarism, and as such he is no longer entitled to our suffering him to live.
Of course one is. Living in a civilized society means that your life is contingent on obeying the rules of that society.
If it’s about us, then it speaks poorly of us as a people that our response to someone committing cold-hearted mass murder is to provide them with free food, lodging, and medical care for the rest of their lives.
Most people still interpret execution as a more profound message.
I agree. The point wouldn’t be to send any message to people who are already sociopaths or irredeemable racists–it would be for everybody else, to sharpen the clarity of society’s moral position, for the future’s sake.
It’s a theory, anyway.
I agree. As has been said above, the point of the sentence in such a case isn’t about what the convict ‘deserves.’
I must have missed this memo. I hate to see what would happen if you were a traffic court judge.
(I know you’re talking about murder, but I still don’t know how you can state such a proposition with such authority, in the absence of any authority. Your using your conclusion as if it were an argument.)
As a matter of human history, we are living in a time in which human death resulting from intentional killing by another human is at its lowest level ever.
It’s is so the case that the death penalty was once far more common. Indeed, at one time, death was the sole punishment for almost any felony.
The death penalty neither reduces violent crime nor does it deter it.
The death penalty is morally wrong period. Whenever I see my Facebook friends posting things like “I’m against the death penalty , but in this case …,” I reply “then you’re not against the death penalty.”
I don’t support the death penalty in this or any case.
Many in the black community know that executing one white guy is no “come-uppance” for them, even if they do favor the death penalty, as this kid is no different from the other bigots and racists in America in that he is a product of his environment. He committed an unspeakable horror but in the larger sense, which the black community is WELL positioned to recognize, he is just the latest visible manifestation of hatred and bigotry. Killing him won’t solve anything.
It’d be good to remember that before this incident the black community was already deep in the work of dealing with ongoing murders of unarmed black men (and some women) that has escalated in the last couple of years. Yes it is a terrible tragedy but the even more tragic truth is it’s no huge shock to anyone in the black community, who feel hated and devalued by nonblacks every single day. They’re not naive enough to think one execution of a kid born and raised in a racist boiling mess is going to fix anything or make thins better for their own families.
The death penalty may be moot anyway. If he is not put in solitary or protected custody, he won’t last long in general population in any prison in this country. There are white gangs who might try to protect him but alot of people of any color or affiliation think very poorly of someone who’d murder people in a church, including grandmothers and children. (Granted he only attempted, in the case of the child, who played dead and survived.) As is often pointed out, even in prisons there is a very real “honor code” and some criminals receive the most unwelcome kind of “attention” because of the nature of their crimes.
I disagree on the basis that there is no such thing as objective morality.
My apologies. I was responding to the assertion that the death penalty is wrong because it’s possible for innocent people to be executed and didn’t fully read the rest of what you said.
Just curious. Have any convicted killers ever escaped from death row, say in the last 50 or so years? We know that at least a few have escaped from regular prisons.
I don’t consider myself a liberal, though I tend to support liberal policies, depending.
I am not against the death penalty in the abstract, but as an American policy today, well, I can’t help but notice that black people tend to get executed more than white people. I don’t care what they do to Roof, but continuing the practice of capital punishment in America will mean perpetuating a kind of institutionalized racism that is very similar to what Roof stands for in the first place.
It’d be nice if every discussion of American issues didn’t arrive at racism sooner or later, but this is still a racist country with a racist application of capital punishment. It is supposed to be part of a justice system. I end up in the unrealistic position of “clean up the systemic racism, then I’ll be ok with executing Roof.” Life in prison is probably better in the big picture.
I oppose the death penalty on the “chance of error / cost / doesn’t actually deter crime” grounds. So if I could wave a wand and eliminate the death penalty tomorrow then I’d do so even if it meant Roof got life in prison instead. On the other hand, if Roof receives it, I won’t weep about it on humanitarian or moralistic grounds.
I disagree with Wolfpup’s interpretation. It is possible to give both a long-gun and a hand-gun, but the steps required for the hand-gun are much more onerous than for the rifle.
To own a firearm in Canada, you need a Possession and Acquisition Licence, commonly called a PAL. To get that, you need to do a firearms safety course and pass a background check by the police.
The PAL is graded for different types of weapons. The easiest one to get is for hunting, so PALs for long-guns (rifles and shot-guns) are relatively easy to get.
If someone with a PAL for a long-gun and wants to give the long-gun to someone else, the recipient must also have a PAL for a long-gun. It’s up to the donor to be sure the recipient has a PAL for that type of long-gun. If the recipient does have a PAL, then the donor can give it the recipient.
It’s much more complicated for a hand-gun. Again, both the donor and the recipient have to have a PAL, and both of them have to have a PAL authorising possession of a hand-gun. That takes additional firearms safety courses, and an additional background check. As well, to obtain a hand-gun PAL, one must belong to a firearms club.
Assuming both the donor and the recipient have a PAL for a handgun, the next thing is that hand-guns are registered, unlike long-guns. So the donor has to do the government paperwork to transfer the hand-gun to the recipient, and have the hand-gun de-registered in his/her name, and the recipient has to do the paperwork to acquire the hand-gun and have it registered in his/her name. Sorta takes the surprise out of the gift-wrapped box.
Also, it’s not the case that, as Wolfpup says, that “for a handgun, that would be practically no one.” It is possible to get a handgun, if you pass the steps outlined above.
What is exceedingly rare is to get a PAL for a handgun that authorises it for personal protection, allowing the individual to carry the hand-gun anywhere. The RCMP doesn’t give out stats on that category, but I’ve seen estimates that there are between 75 to 200 personal protection PALs for the entire country.
None of which is intended as legal advice, of course, but just to respond to a general question. If someone wants to transfer a gun, they should consult the RCMP.
BTW I don’t know really why this case would have to be *expected *to turn into a test of liberal support of the death penalty. Except for someone who buys into the premise that down deep inside most people do not really oppose the death penalty and are just hypocrites who just want to be safe from it themselves but would readily apply it to those they consider worth killing, as in Claverhouse’s post about “leftists”. Or that it proves liberals are too morally weak to take forceful actions, as in the incident of Mike Dukakis’ debate answer.
I remember when in the case of the Norway mass killings, many Americans were horrified by the notion the maximum prison sentence is 21 years, and some jokers were making blog/messageboard comments along the lines of “well now I know where to go to kill someone”. I don’t know if they realized they were in effect saying that the only thing keeping them from being criminals is the fear of very severe punishment, and that there is a threshold of pain below which they’d find it worth the cost to become one.
Meanwhile he statements of the survivors, family members, and members of the congregation at Roof’s hearing are by and large exemplary of the “better angels” of Christian values.
For this guy, Roof, I would not be pleased with it or support a sentence of the death penalty, but would support a lifetime in prison.
I am not a fan of the death penalty. I do think it is possible that there is a place for it in select cases, but that it should be rare. I believe the DP is and will continue to fall our of favor in the future and that’s it is possible the US will abolish it someday, which would be a good thing.
As far as I know, few first-world countries still have the DP- the US being either the only one or one of a very few first-world countries that still have it. We like to think we are better than all those other countries, but the only countries (besides us) that still use the DP are ones we look down upon as being uncivilized, backward, or barbaric.
As far as Roof is concerned, I particularly would not support the DP for him for a couple of reasons. One reason is simply his age. He has the potential for a lot of life and learning ahead of him and I would hope a lifetime in prion would give him the maturity, education, separation and hindsight one would need to see the wrongness of the horrible decision he made. Basically, I think his age gives him a shot at redemption, but that even if he were to reform he should not allowed out.
A final reason is that he seems to have been indoctrinated into his hate. That would be partially the fault of those who taught him his hatred. Prison will hopefully separate him from those people even it it is too late for him personally.
Why does he deserve a lifetime of learning? That’s far more than he was willing to give his victims. He has nothing to offer society and there is nothing he can do that would “redeem” him or make the effort worthwhile.
Conservatives call me Liberal. Liberals call me conservative. So, perhaps my vote shouldn’t count.
I’m against the death penalty for these reasons, but mostly the last one:
o There isn’t any good evidence that it’s a significant deterrent
o Doubt of guilt (doesn’t apply in this case)
o It costs more than life imprisonment
o A civilized society shouldn’t be in the business of killing people whenever there’s a reasonable alternative
That said, if I were on a jury in a capital case, I would follow the law rather than my opinions regarding the appropriateness of capital punishment. I’m happy to voice my opinion and vote my conscience. That would be true even were I Governor: I would not be on a crusade to abolish capital punishment, but I would support a drive to do so.
I agree. These are crimes where, if I was in the location at the time and armed, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger to stop it, and feel no remorse for the perpetrator. (I don’t own a gun, so that’s not likely!)
My objection to the death penalty is not based on any sense of sympathy for the perpetrator. I feel they’ve “earned” a death sentence. I just don’t think we as a society should be dealing it out.
The Marathon Bomber got a death sentence. I feel pretty much the same way for him as I do for Roof – perhaps more sympathy for him because I do believe he was heavily influenced by his brother. But he placed that bomb, and Roof pulled that trigger, over and over. Sorry guys, but that’s not allowed. I disagree with the death penalty, but I won’t be out protesting against their executions. Let’s change the laws, but meanwhile, let’s follow them, and I won’t cry when they’re executed.
