South Carolina Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty for Dylann Roof: Victims’ Families Divided
September 4, 2015 | Posted by David Love
... Wilson noted that some of the victims’ family members oppose the death penalty altogether due to their faith, while others thought life imprisonment was a more practical and preferred option. Some of the families, however, believed death was appropriate, as the New York Times reported ...
“Making such a weighty decision is an awesome responsibility,” Wilson said. “People who have already been victimized should not bear the burden of making the decisions on behalf of an entire community. They shouldn’t have to weigh the concerns of other people. They shouldn’t have to consider the facts of the case” ...
“In the big picture, if you see why these people are involved, it’s because they were in a church on a Wednesday evening at Bible study,” Savage said. “They’re not Sunday Christians. They’re 24-7 Christians. They believe in the sanctity of life. They believe in forgiveness. So for them, to not be proponent of the death penalty is no surprise” ...
A 2013 Pew Research Center poll found that support for the death penalty was significantly lower among Blacks and Latinos than whites, with 36 percent of Blacks favoring death and 55 opposing it. Half of Latinos oppose capital punishment and 40 percent support it. Meanwhile, 63 percent of whites favor the death penalty, as large majorities of white evangelical Protestants (67 percent), white mainline Protestants (64 percent) and white Catholics (59 percent) are apparently not willing to forgive ...
https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/09/04/south-carolina-prosecutors-seek-death-penalty-for-dylann-roof-victims-families-divided/