Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who was responsible for a heinous racially-motivated shooting in June that left nine people, including a state senator, dead in Charleston, South Carolina (via NYT):
Mr. Roof has been indicted twice for the killings, in state court and in federal court, and each of those cases carries a possible death sentence. Until the court filing on Thursday by Scarlett A. Wilson, the South Carolina state solicitor overseeing the case, neither set of prosecutors had said publicly whether they would seek to have him executed, but state officials, including Gov. Nikki R. Haley, have said emphatically that the case warranted the death penalty.[…]
Prosecutors said they intended to present evidence on Mr. Roof’s mental state, adult and juvenile criminal record and other conduct, as well as his apparent lack of remorse for the killings.
A lone gunman walked into the historic church in downtown Charleston, and sat in a Bible study session for almost an hour before drawing a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun and shooting people ranging in age from 26 to 87.
Roof’s shootings rehashed the debates about racism, the Confederate flag, and gun control. There is a legitimate debate over the Confederate flag on government property, though that was drowned out by political correctness and double standards; Amazon, eBay, and Walmart suspended the sale of the Confederate flag, but Amazon still allowed Nazi paraphernalia to be sold. Concerning gun control, none of Obama’s gun control initiatives post-Newtown would have stopped Roof from engaging in mass murder. The FBI admitted that a clerical error within the National Instant Background Check System (NICS) allowed Roof to purchase a handgun, despite his admission to a drug charge that would have prevented him from buying a firearm.
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