23 June 2015 :

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, asked on June 20 for Dylann Roof to be given the death penalty. Roof, a 21-year-old white man, is accused of gunning down the nine victims during a Bible study class at Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17. Haley and others, including presidential candidate Lindsey Graham, who is a South Carolina senator, are calling the shootings a hate crime. The governor has no power in Roof's prosecution or sentencing. The intense publicity could galvanize public support for executing the suspect if he is convicted, just as it did in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man convicted in the Boston Marathon bombing, some officials say. "This is our Boston bomber," said Miller Shealy, a professor at Charleston School of Law. Charleston's chief prosecutor Scarlett Wilson has yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty. It was a premeditated shooting, Wilson said, but will likely spend months building her case before announcing her intentions. “My first obligation, my primary obligation is to these victims’ families,” said Scarlett A. Wilson, the prosecutor for Charleston County, at a news conference Friday afternoon. “They deserve to know the facts first. They deserve to be involved in any conversations regarding the death penalty.” The Charleston case stands out in at least one respect that could work against a decision to seek the death penalty against Roof. In a gesture that reflected deep religious conviction, the families voiced tearful forgiveness for the suspect during his first court appearance on Friday. While none of them have said publicly whether they want the prosecutor to seek death, their merciful stances suggest that they may well oppose execution, experts in capital punishment say. Those wishes could prove difficult for Wilson to ignore. There are many precedents when families of murder victims have persuaded prosecutors to seek life sentences, rather than the death penalty, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a Washington-based non-profit. "Ultimately, the choice is for the prosecutor to make," said Dunham, adding that Charleston may present a special case. "When you have victims whose lives where about peace and inclusiveness and whose families have called for forgiveness and mercy, seeking the death penalty against their will could amount to further victimization by the system." South Carolina has an execution rate of 8.3 per every 10,000 people, the seventh highest in the country. The most recent convict executed in South Carolina was Jeffrey Motts in 2011. South Carolina has executed 43 prisoners since 1985, All of them have been men. South Carolina currently has 44 inmates on death row. Roof appeared briefly before a judge Friday, and his next court appearance isn't until October.