And yet, he's already requested a new trial and seems to be wanting to fight his sentence, despite being not only unrepentant but even proud of his crime. I've got to admit, a hardcore fucking asshole like Roof challenges my steadfast opposition to the death penalty. The guy really does deserve to die, and I'll shed no tears when he does, but in the end the true test of a civilized society is still how we treat our most detestable members.

I've always thought that capital punishment was sort of an easy way out. What's worse? Dying, or spending 60 years in an 8 x 12 box and then dying?

Our natural propensity is to survive, even under the most adverse circumstances. Knowing your are facing your inevitable demise- the years on death row, the preparation, the macabre rituals of execution- does not at all seem like the 'easy way out'.

His goal isn't to win on appeal, it's to get more attention.

That may be true, but he did specifically request an appeal of the sentence, not the verdict. He never challenged his actual guilt.

What, and let someone else take all the credit?

I get what you mean, but it doesn't change my opinion on the death penalty at all. I do not object to putting to death the worst of the worst, the unquestionably guilty, the ones sure to kill again if given the opportunity. This is one of those cases.

I just don't trust the justice system to limit itself to those extremely rare cases that have no doubt. I have no problem with Roof being executed, but I'd much rather see him live another 70 years in prison than have my government execute someone innocent.

Yes. It IS part of his plan. He wants to be a martyr for RAHOWA. He should be locked in the Special Housing unit of the east podunk jail, with the stoolies and weaklings, and forgotten.

He should be set free. Muammar Gaddafi knows what I'm talking about.

I laughed at the rhetoric he used, Its all about how everyone hates him. LOL

Only way this guy could get any attention was by murdering black people in a church. Any guesses on the mental age of this guy?

Ugh the mind of a killer is a really fucked up thing to ponder. Never again!

What does this accomplish that life imprisonment doesn't? State-sanctioned murder is culpable in why we think it's ok to kill people sometimes. In some cases, we decorate state-sanctioned murderers as heroes. The fact that we categorize some killings as murders (personally motivated killings) and others as acts of heroism (legal and political killings at the behest of another entity), shows how much we've learned to accept that the ends justify the means when it comes to executions. We hold that killing is wrong and the ends don't justify the means, but then completely ignore (and get offended at being exposed to) the blind spots we have in this logic. Why? Because it makes us uncomfortable.

The lines we draw on what makes one killing acceptable, or even good, versus what makes it unacceptable can get murky. It's easy to categorize Roof's killings as unacceptable because they were motivated by hate, but when a solider kills someone for what amount to socio-economic reasons and extreme otherfication of people from other countries... why is it so easy to categorize that as heroism? Why is it greed for a mugger to shoot a victim, but not for a government to fight a battle for a sea port? Why must the collective will always somehow be selfless when it results in similar ends to the selfish individual will?

If we want to make killing unacceptable, then there shouldn't be exceptions. Lock this asshole up. Create a kinder, gentler world where people aren't ready to kill eachother for hate or because an authority told them to do it.

It's not that I don't get people. I do. It frustrates me. It wouldn't if I didn't believe we were capable of better. If I didn't earnestly believe in people and our capacity to reason and feel compassion, I wouldn't be disappointed when we fail to see our own hypocrisy, cruelty, and stupidity.