Prosecutors decid­ed against pur­su­ing a death sen­tence for a ser­i­al killer in Terrebonne Parish in Louisiana. Roland Dominique, who was arrest­ed at a home­less shel­ter, pled guilty to the mur­der of eight young men, and he may have killed as many as 23 men. Terrebonne Parish District Attorney Joe Waitz, Jr. decid­ed against seek­ing the death penal­ty after con­sult­ing with mem­bers of the vic­tims’ familes.

The fam­i­ly mem­bers reached a unan­i­mous agree­ment to accept a plan of back-to-back life sen­tences. Some cit­ed oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty and oth­ers desired a more imme­di­ate clo­sure than a death-penal­ty case would allow. ​“I am com­fort­able because of the una­nim­i­ty of sen­ti­ment from the fam­i­lies, a sense that they were sat­is­fied that they took part in the process,” said Assistant District Attorney Mark Rhodes. ​“That una­nim­i­ty gave us a feel­ing that we had giv­en them the jus­tice that they sought.”

(M. Foster, ​“DA: Suspected LA ser­i­al killer to plead guilty,” Associated Press, September 22, 2008). See Arbitrariness and Victims. DPIC note: According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the death penal­ty is sup­posed to be reserved for the ​“worst of the worst” offend­ers, but fre­quent­ly the worst crimes are not the ones that result in a death sentence.

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