nov. 9, 2016
tribal news
to make their own personal choice but I’m in favor of it. I certainly feel that the death penalty is needed in society. I think that families have the right to give the ultimate price for losing their loved ones. And I think it should be more their decisions than a jury or an attorney.” But what is right in this situation? Does Roof deserve to pay for what he has allegedly done? “In the case of the Emmanuel Nine, if the families chose to forgive, then forgiveness should be given,” Wagner said. “And he should serve the rest of his life out behind bars.” Many of the family members of the victims offered Roof forgiveness at his bond hearing. So should he live? The case of Dylann Roof doesn’t make the choice any easier. “The process is always going to be run by people, there will always be room for human error, you should not have a system that takes away a person’s life,” LeClerc said. “If you break the social contract, you are removed from society and you can remove someone from society just as easily by putting them in jail.” Some say sentencing the murderer to the ultimate punishment is justice for the ultimate crime, but from the perspective of a victim’s family, the death penalty can be an attractive prospect. “I think it was really disrespectful what he did and it has torn so many families apart,” said sophomore Alex Hodges, citing the idea of justice for the families. B u t when it comes to the law, should the emotions of the victims’ families weigh as law? “Perhaps emotional vindications o v e r some issues maybe, at times, needs to be tempered,” Gidick said. “We are still a state, a nation of law, there is a due process of law. It is not a mob action to this. [The suspects] are given adequate defense [in court] and there need to be
“
consequences for these actions.” And there’s also the supporting prospect of death being finite. If a murderer is put to death, they cannot commit the same crime again. “If the person has been convicted multiple times for murders,” senior Tamara Alquza said, “and he’s gotten away with it or left court and has killed multiple people multiple times, then yes, he should get the death penalty.” “It’s a hard situation to give one definite answer,” senior Evan Haithcock said. “On the one side there’s some people who are so crazy and so dangerous that leaving them alive would be unjust because it would put so many other people in danger. However, is it better to kill them or allow other people to possibly be killed?” The potential to kill again is one of the main supporting arguments for the death penalty. “The aspect of recidivism [breaking the law again] is zero percent, you can’t kill again if you’re dead,” Wallace said. The death penalty is a prevalent issue in society, and will certainly continue as such. Because for every name, every crime, every opinion, there will always be the same story. “It’s not always black and white. Even with capital punishment this is an issue. At the end of the day, when people ask me if I am for or against capital punishment, I am legally against it, I think it should not be a law, personally though, from case to case basis, I will obviously change,” Tyler said. “And that is the fallibility of individ-
Death Penalty:
by the numbers
32
The process is always going to be run by people, there will always be room for human error, you should not have a system that takes away a person’s life
Number of U.S. states with the death penalty
uals. They allow their passions to dictate them and that is the same reason why we don’t use vigilante justice.”
Statistics found on: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf & http://www.statisticbrain.com/death-penalty-statistics/ http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row-inmates-state-and-size-death-row-year
“
Misty LeClerc
05
2,905
Current number of Death Row inmates
130
Number released from death row with evidence of their innocence
between 1977- March 2015
$2.4 million Average cost of a death penalty case
Executions by region: in the span of 40 years (1976- Oct. 28, 2016)
South -1172 Midwest -178 West - 85 Northeast - 4 TX & OK - 650