An admitted white supremacist was condemned to death Tuesday for massacring nine black worshipers who'd invited him to study the Bible with them at a Charleston, S.C., church, ending a two-phase federal trial that exposed the killer's hate-fueled motives and plumbed the chasms of grief left by the victims' deaths.
The jury, the same that convicted Dylann Roof in the murders last month, announced its verdict after deliberating less than three hours.
Roof, 22, who represented himself in the penalty phase, did very little to persuade the panel to spare his life. He declined to present any witnesses or evidence, blocked standby defense lawyers' attempts to raise questions about his mental health, and suggested in his closing statement that arguing for life in prison wasn't worth the effort.
I am not typically a supporter of the death penalty but I have no problem with this outcome.
If anybody ever needs to be convinced that racism is alive and well, and that it is way too easy to get guns in this country, they need look no further than this case right here.
Source http://ift.tt/2jb8Igq
