Justice is sometimes impossible.
Members of the Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina welcomed Dylann Roof into Bible study, where they discussed scripture before Roof shot and killed nine people in defense of white supremacy. For the families of the nine worshippers, courts will never be able to make things right.
Alicia Sanders, whose son was among the victims, said “Every fiber in my body hurts. I’ll never be the same,” according to USA Today. Nothing the justice system does to Roof can compensate Sanders for her loss
The death penalty, the conclusion jurors reached in Roof’s trial, tries to reconcile the fact that there are crimes for which the criminal cannot atone.
A poll from the University of South Carolina showed that while 64 percent of white South Carolinians were in favor of executing Roof, only 31 percent of black South Carolinians supported killing him. At first, I thought the racial divide was a result of black Ameri- cans’ relationship with government — no group of Americans has been quite as exposed to the excesses of state violence.
Two months before Roof ’s attack, just a few miles north of Emanuel AME Church, an unarmed man named Walter Scott was shot in the back as he ran away from Officer Michael Slager.
Despite graphic cell phone footage of the incident, and despite Slager being fired, arrested and charged with murder — unlike in many other recent police shootings — Slager was not convicted at his trial last December.
Black Americans are rightfully skeptical of the justice system, and this skepticism extends to the courts’ crud- est instrument: the death penalty.
But I don’t think low support among black Americans for executing Roof reflects doubt in Roof ’s guilt or the fairness of his trial. His guilt is evident, and court proceedings have duly dissected each moment of the horrific attack.
Rather, the families of the victims have shown they prefer forgiveness to the death penalty.
According to USA Today, a daughter of one of the victims said to Roof, “I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me … but I forgive you.”
A victim’s sister said, “We have no room for hate. So we have to forgive.”
A granddaughter of one of the victims said, “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof — everyone’s plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love.”
Though the opportunity for justice has passed, these brave voices show that there is always a chance for grace. They show a level of integrity and moral clarity I wish politi- cians would match.
If anyone deserves the execution, it is Roof — and this the argument the state made when it decided to pursue the death penalty. Not killing Roof would set a dangerous precedent for not killing other heinous criminals.
But in the process of establishing prec- edents, procuring lethal injection drugs
and crafting the administrative procedure for death sentences, we must not lose sight of the death penalty’s role. It is not closure — before Roof ’s execution, the state faces a gauntlet of appeals that will take years or decades. It is not justice, which is impossible given the harm Roof inflicted.
The death penalty will be a coping mechanism, the most the justice system can do in the face of Roof ’s evil actions. The Emanuel AME Church community shows that a Christian message of grace might be just as effective.
Danny Bugingo can be reached at [email protected]