Death is the best punishment for Dylann Roof
January 19, 2017
George Stinney, a name that many may not know, was a young boy from South Carolina who was accused of murdering two women in 1944. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 10 minutes at the age of 14, making him the youngest American executed in the 20th-century. In 2014, 70-years after his execution, he was proven innocent. He would have turned 86-years-old this year.
If he were alive today, he would have witnessed one of the most disgusting and despicable acts on American soil in recent history committed by Dylann Storm Roof; a name synonymous with Satan to many, belonging to a man filled with so much hate that he was able to go into a church and murder innocent men and women on June 17, 2015. On Jan. 7, 2016, Roof was sentenced to death, just as George Stinney was in 1944.
There is no reason for Roof’s life to be spared. He understood the consequences of his actions, stating on his website, “I have no choice…someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.” He believed his horrid acts were justified, according to a family member of a survivor. Before opening fire on a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Roof said, “you’ve raped our women, and you are taking over the country…I have to do what I have to do.” His actions were premeditated and calculated, making them even more monstrous.
Roof murdered nine people in South Carolina, a state where the consequences for murder are very clear. South Carolina was one of only ten states with over 600 death penalty executions by 1972, when the death penalty was suspended by the Supreme Court, due to the ruling in the case Furman v. Georgia. In 1976, the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court case of Gregg v. Georgia.
On that June day in 2015, Roof killed more people than any person who has received the death penalty in the state since its reinstatement.
Roof is an extreme racist and a mass murderer. He felt no remorse after killing those nine people, and after being sentenced to death he stated, “I still feel like I had to do it.”
You may argue that it is not our right to take a life, but it was not his right either. Many men have been executed before, even after apologizing for their actions. Some, like Stinney, were innocent. Roof is not innocent nor will he ever change, so what makes him an exception?
Email [email protected].