Dylann Roof Sentenced to Death for Charleston Church Massacre
by JON SCHUPPE and JAMIE MORRISON
Play Death for Charleston Church Shooter Dylann Roof, Jury Rules Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed
Death for Charleston Church Shooter Dylann Roof, Jury Rules 1:40
An admitted white supremacist was condemned to death Tuesday for massacring nine black worshipers who'd invited him to study the Bible with them at a Charleston, S.C., church, ending a two-phase federal trial that exposed the killer's hate-fueled motives and plumbed the chasms of grief left by the victims' deaths.
The jury, the same that convicted Dylann Roof in the murders last month, announced its verdict after deliberating less than three hours.
Dylann Roof speaks in the courtroom in Charleston on Jan. 10. Robert Maniscalco
Roof, 22, who represented himself in the penalty phase, did very little to persuade the panel to spare his life. He declined to present any witnesses or evidence, blocked standby defense lawyers' attempts to raise questions about his mental health, and suggested in his closing statement that arguing for life in prison wasn't worth the effort.
Play Victim's Brother: Dylann Roof 'Radicalized' and Acted Like a Terrorist Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed
Victim's Brother: Dylann Roof 'Radicalized' and Acted Like a Terrorist 1:28
As the verdicts were announced, Roof stared straight ahead, or looked down. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel scheduled formal sentencing for Wednesday morning. Roof then asked for a lawyer to help file a motion for a new trial, which Gergel said he'd consider before the sentencing, but added that the request didn't seem justified.
Related: Charleston Massacre Trial Concludes With Dylann Roof Saying 'I Had to Do It'
Play Dylann Roof's chilling opening statement: 'There is nothing wrong with me' Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed
Dylann Roof's chilling opening statement: 'There is nothing wrong with me' 1:50
Melvin Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, was among the nine killed, said after the verdict that his family had received justice. But he added, "This is a very hollow victory because my sister is still gone."
Graham said he did not argue with the death penalty for Roof.
"He just took them away from us because he wanted to. He decided the day, the hour, the moment, my sister was going to die. And now someone is going to do that for him," Graham said.
Graham also argued that if Roof had a Muslim sounding name, he would have been called a radicalized terrorist. "He was radicalized, but not in the way some people think. He radicalized himself to think he had to act on it just like any other terrorist."
Roof's relatives said in a statement that they would "always love Dylann" but would "struggle as long as we live to understand why he committed this horrible attack, which caused so much pain to so many good people."
His defense lawyers, sidelined for much of the trial, said the sentenced meant that "this case will not be over for a very long time." They also expressed dismay that the trial "shed so little light on the reasons for this tragedy."
Roof now becomes the 63rd person on federal death row, and the first to be put there since Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015.
Nevertheless, it will likely be years before he is put to death; the federal government has put executions on hold out of concerns about lethal injection drugs, and appeals could put off the date even further. The last federal execution took place in 2003.
And Roof still faces a second trial, by the state of South Carolina, where he also faces the death penalty. The date of that trial has not been determined.
From the start of the trial, Roof's guilt was hardly in doubt.
It took the 12-person jury a little over two hours to convict Roof last month on all 33 counts, including two dozen that fall under federal hate crime statutes.
Play Mourning the victims of the Charleston church shooting Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed
Mourning the victims of the Charleston church shooting 2:46
During that phase of the trial, defense lawyer David Bruck put no witnesses on the stand and raised no objections when prosecutors played Roof's videotaped confession to the FBI, which was made following his arrest. In it, Roof admitted he was guilty and that the motive was to spark a race war. He told the FBI men he was surprised he was able to kill as many people as he did with his .45-caliber Glock pistol.
Witnesses included two women who survived the shooting, Felicia Sanders and Polly Sheppard, who testified that Roof told her, "I'm going to leave you here to tell the story."
Related: Charleston Massacre Survivor Says Suspect Dylann Roof Opened Fire as Victims Stood to Pray
For the penalty phase, a judge allowed Roof to represent himself, but only after conducting a competency hearing that remains under seal. Roof told the jury that "there is nothing wrong with me psychologically," and that he chose to mount his own defense to prevent lawyers from presenting mental health evaluations.
Image: Police tape surrounds the parking lot behind the AME Emanuel Church
Police tape surrounds the parking lot behind the AME Emanuel Church as FBI forensic experts work the crime scene, in Charleston, South Carolina on June 19 2015. Stephen B. Morton / AP
Prosecutors focused on the lives of the victims — the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41; the Rev. Daniel Simmons, 74; Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45; Depayne Middleton-Doctor, 49; Cynthia Hurd, 54; Myra Thompson, 59; Ethel Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; and Tywanza Sanders, 26. The government used photos, video, audio recordings and testimony from loved ones to explore the killings' aftermath.
Also key to the government's case was was showing Roof's planning for the June 17, 2015 massacre, in which Roof targeted a group of worshipers who'd invited him to study the Bible with them on a Wednesday night, waiting nearly an hour before opening fire.
The government has also stressed Roof's apparent lack of remorse afterward, a contrast with the expressions of forgiveness from some victims' relatives at Roof's first court appearance after the attack.
At trial, prosecutors shared with the jury portions of Roof's jailhouse journal, dated six weeks after the killings.
"I do not regret what I did," Roof wrote. "I am not sorry."
After the verdict, U.S. Sen Tim Scott of South Carolina said the jury had made the right decision, and that it would mark "a pivotal moment" in the victims' families' "road toward some sort of closure."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement that "no verdict can bring back the nine we lost that day at Mother Emanuel. And no verdict can heal the wounds of the five church members who survived the attack or the souls of those who lost loved ones to Roof's callous hand. But we hope that the completion of the prosecution provides the people of Charleston — and the people of our nation — with a measure of closure."
__________________
Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug.
A flock of flirting flamingos is pure, passionate, pink pandemonium-a frenetic flamingle-mangle-a discordant discotheque of delirious dancing, flamboyant feathers, and flamingo lingo.
The death penalty takes YEARS. In my opinion, for a heinous murder, after the sentence is pronounced, they should be given a last meal and then sent out to the firing squad. And, that would be the end of it. None of this years of appeals crap.
The death penalty takes YEARS. In my opinion, for a heinous murder, after the sentence is pronounced, they should be given a last meal and then sent out to the firing squad. And, that would be the end of it. None of this years of appeals crap.
Appeals have a purpose. There have been a lot of wrongfully convicted people on death row. Once they are dead - there's no going back, posthumous pardon don't really bring them back from the dead.
HOWEVER, the appeals process for death row inmates needs to be expedited with all appeals done within 2 years.
__________________
LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
But he did it. He admitted to it and is not sorry. I think one of the grounds for appeal will be he didn't have a good lawyer. Well he was his own lawyer, and he's going to use that to his advantage.
