A recent poll conducted by the University of South Carolina reveals deep racial divisions in the state over the death penalty and over the appropriateness of applying it in the case of Dylann Roof, the white defendant who faces state and federal capital charges in the race-based killings of nine black members of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. According to the poll, 64.9% of African Americans in South Carolina oppose the death penalty, while 69.4% of white South Carolinians say they support it. Blacks were also more than twice as likely to support a sentence of life without parole for the church killings than to support the death penalty. Nearly two-thirds of black South Carolinians (64.7%) said that Roof should be sentenced to life without parole if convicted of the nine killings, while less than a third (30.9%) favored the death penalty. 4.4% said they did not know what sentence should be imposed. The views of white South Carolinians were diametrically opposite, with 64.6% saying they think Roof should be sentenced to death if convicted and 29.9% prefering life without parole. 5.6% of whites said they did not know which sentence should be imposed. Monique Lyle, who conducted the poll, said the results reflect consistent opposition to the death penalty among most black South Carolinians. Kylon Middleton, senior pastor of Mount Zion AME Church in Charleston, said the black community’s opposition to capital punishment is tied to racial bias in the criminal justice system, adding, “We have been brutalized in this country, therefore, we can empathize with anyone … who would receive ultimate judgment.” A recent study of South Carolina’s death penalty found significant racial disparities in death sentences. For example, the study found that although 48% of South Carolina murder victims are black males, those cases account for only 8% of the state’s death sentences. Earlier studies also found striking evidence of geographic and racial arbitrariness in South Carolina’s application of capital punishment. The new poll also found profound differences in the views of South Carolinians as to how they believed African Americans were treated in the U.S. criminal justice system. 82.3% of blacks say that the justice system is biased against blacks. 59.5% of whites say it treats blacks fairly and 3.9% say it is biased in favor of blacks.
(C. Cope, “Most SC blacks say Dylann Roof should get life without parole,” The Herald, June 12, 2016.) See Race and Public Opinion.
