When Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old man who was sentenced to death this week for killing nine people in a Charlotte, SC church in June 2015, told federal prosecutors that he would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, the Justice Department turned him down. Ironically, he may get that life sentence after all.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, only three people have been executed by the federal government since the death penalty was reinstated in 1988. There are 59 inmates on death row and none has an execution date.
Roof represented himself during the sentencing phase of his trial, and he called no witnesses and presented no evidence. “A deeply disturbed person was allowed to represent himself in the penalty phase. It was an exercise in institutional suicide,” says criminal defense attorney (and DPF board member) Robert Sanger.
Having already confessed and been found guilty, his upcoming state trial in South Carolina probably will have the same outcome. Sanger says although duplicative trials are allowed between state and federal courts, they “should be prohibited by double jeopardy. . . . allowing dual prosecutions leads to unfairness. That includes giving two chances to convict, abnegating the right against self-incrimination, and undermining of the right to a fair trial. Two chances to convict, two chances to execute is not the American way.”
Finally, the federal government, which uses lethal injection, has the same problem obtaining lethal drugs as the states with capital punishment have. And the lawsuits over botched executions have made the drugs supplied by compounding pharmacies less desirable.
When Roof was sentenced to death, DPF President Mike Farrell said, “It’s very sad to see the federal government so intent on death for a deeply confused and disturbed young man who clearly wants to die and thinks he’ll become a martyr for a cause.”
