-
“Those without the capital get the punishment”: bias and inefficiency in the death penalty
What is the true cost of the death penalty? Illustration by Corey Bright
Erica Webb - Online Editor
online@insideuab.com
Last year, Dylann Roof walked into a church only to murder nine innocent African-Americans as they offered him sanctuary and kindness. He embodied an institutionalized evil in the United States—violent white supremacy upon which he felt the nation was losing its grip.
Now, the federal government is calling for the death penalty in his case. The first time I heard this, I couldn’t help but immediately think, “Good. He deserves it.” Anger. Frustration. From one moral standpoint, an eye for an eye punishment is the best justice possible, especially when the evidence seems so clear.
From another moral standpoint, take the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.” Mercy. Nonviolence. As I scrolled through cases on Time.com, a bright red ad from the Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights caught my attention: “No. Killing Killers Won’t Bring Back Victims.”
