CHARLOTTE — Charlotte City Councilman Malcolm Graham believes justice will be served against the man who killed nine people at a South Carolina church ten years ago.
The killer, Dylann Roof, was one of just a few death row inmates who did not have their sentence commuted by President Joe Biden.
Graham’s sister, Cynthia Hurd, was one of the victims.
“I think about my sister each and every day and there is an absence in our family,” Graham explained.
Roof shot and killed Hurd along with eight others at Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston during a Wednesday night bible study.
“This was an attack against a race of people, it mattered who they were,” Graham said.
Roof is one of the three men who are still on federal death row after President Biden commented the other 37 federal death row inmates to life without the possibility of parole.
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“So while I understand some families are upset with the president ... I remain unapologetic about the need for him to face justice,” Graham elaborated.
Graham said while he sympathizes with the families of victims of the inmates who are now off death row, he is glad that Roof remains there.
“Every family, every trial, every situation has its own story to tell I’m sympathetic to all families who lose loved ones to murder, gun violence, and heinous crimes, I’m a little selfish at this point, I lost my sister,” Graham said.
And because of the moratorium, Roof and the other remaining death row inmates are not currently scheduled to be executed.
Graham said he recognizes that some future presidents could change Roof’s sentence.
“I only can control what I can control, so I can’t control what the president does or what the president does not do or what a future president may not do. I’m here for the verdict the jury rendered,” Graham explained.
President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he wants to resume federal executions. However, he would not have any power to reverse Biden’s computations.
VIDEO: Supreme Court rejects appeal from Dylann Roof, who killed 9 at Charleston church
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