The Stolen Supreme Court Seat

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoM_w-5SulQFmfKpQkOFtwTQ3s1C6xwNtdhtnywBdeJBR8u3ZAvdU8adYjrYgZQFkSH_3Utu_p-zYNKH1ET6p6sb3xXn6XlWGtNFGwU62zJng8Hma6XvFHEKXh98usba6YuHAOkae5EOQ/s1600/US+Supreme+Court.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="US Supreme Court" border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoM_w-5SulQFmfKpQkOFtwTQ3s1C6xwNtdhtnywBdeJBR8u3ZAvdU8adYjrYgZQFkSH_3Utu_p-zYNKH1ET6p6sb3xXn6XlWGtNFGwU62zJng8Hma6XvFHEKXh98usba6YuHAOkae5EOQ/s400/US+Supreme+Court.jpg" title="US Supreme Court" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Soon after his inauguration next month, President-elect Donald Trump will nominate someone to the Supreme Court, which has been hamstrung by a vacancy since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. There will be public debates about the nominee’s credentials, past record, judicial philosophy and temperament. There will be Senate hearings and a vote.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No matter how it plays out, Americans must remember one thing above all: The person who gets confirmed will sit in a stolen seat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was stolen from Barack Obama, a twice-elected president who fulfilled his constitutional duty more than nine months ago by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/opinion/merrick-garland-for-the-supreme-court.html" target="_blank">nominating Merrick Garland</a>, a highly qualified and widely respected federal appellate judge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was stolen by top Senate Republicans, who broke with longstanding tradition and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/us/politics/supreme-court-nomination-obama.html" target="_blank">refused to consider</a> any nominee Mr. Obama might send them, because they wanted to preserve the court’s conservative majority. The main perpetrators of the theft were Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and Charles Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But virtually all Republican senators were accomplices; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/21/us/politics/where-republican-senators-stand-on-the-supreme-court-nomination.html" target="_blank">only two</a> supported holding hearings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Republican party line — that it was an election year, so the American people should have a “voice” in the selection of the next justice — was a patent lie. The people spoke when they re-elected Mr. Obama in 2012, entrusting him to choose new members for the court. And the Senate <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/opinion/in-election-years-a-history-of-confirming-court-nominees.html" target="_blank">has had no problem</a> considering, and usually confirming, election-year nominees in the past.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of course, Supreme Court appointments have always been political, and the court’s ideological center has shifted back and forth over time. But the Senate has given nominees full consideration and a vote even when the party in power has opposed a president’s choice. That is, until this year, when Republicans claimed that though the Constitution<a href="http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/page/article-ii-section-2" target="_blank"> calls for the Senate’s </a><a href="http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/page/article-ii-section-2">“advice and consent,”</a> senators aren’t obligated to do anything. This is a bad-faith reading of that clause, even if there is no clear way to force a vote. It certainly obliterates a well-established political norm that makes a functioning judicial branch possible. As Paul Krugman <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/how-republics-end.html" target="_blank">wrote </a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/how-republics-end.html">in his column</a> on Monday, institutions are not magically self-sustaining, and they “don’t protect against tyranny when powerful people start defying political norms.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This particular norm is of paramount importance because the court’s institutional legitimacy depends on its perceived separation from the elected branches — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/us/politics/john-roberts-criticized-supreme-court-confirmation-process-before-there-was-a-vacancy.html?_r=0" target="_blank">a fragile concept</a> in the best of times. By tying the latest appointment directly to the outcome of the election, Mr. McConnell and his allies took a torch to that idea — an outrageous gambit that, to nearly everyone’s shock, has paid off. But while Republicans may be celebrating now, the damage they have inflicted on the confirmation process, and on the court as an institution, may be irreversible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHIpsBYs9L2DTMlBp5Ls6uKMHG6PP5nRzPH47iLYv9tlLwbydOo6PHINg-FgcUqDQ5r4_yr3Nj69XtcxA5-xhYA_h3oJHSD65p9m8j_JJGrfLiH57-Cl0B7JD22tLlfxaXyk3Mk-Sto7E/s1600/Antonin+Scalia+Death_PH09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHIpsBYs9L2DTMlBp5Ls6uKMHG6PP5nRzPH47iLYv9tlLwbydOo6PHINg-FgcUqDQ5r4_yr3Nj69XtcxA5-xhYA_h3oJHSD65p9m8j_JJGrfLiH57-Cl0B7JD22tLlfxaXyk3Mk-Sto7E/s400/Antonin+Scalia+Death_PH09.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The slope is both slippery and steep. If Republicans could justify an election-year blockade, what’s to stop Democrats in the future from doing the same? For that matter, why should the party controlling the Senate <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-20/supreme-court-nominations-will-never-be-the-same" target="_blank">ever allow</a> a president of the opposing party to choose a justice<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-20/supreme-court-nominations-will-never-be-the-same">?</a> Indeed, in the weeks before the election, Senate Republicans were threatening, with the encouragement of leading conservative thinkers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/a-coup-against-the-supreme-court.html" target="_blank">never to confirm anyone</a> to fill the vacancy if Hillary Clinton won.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Can anything be done to repair the harm? One step — as obvious as it is unlikely — would be for Mr. Trump to renominate Mr. Garland. Conservatives will scoff, but they know he is as qualified for the job as anyone in the country. When Mr. Garland was floated as a possible choice for the Supreme Court in 2010, Orrin Hatch, the senior Republican senator from Utah, called him a “consensus nominee” and said there was <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-hatch-idUSTRE6456QY20100506" target="_blank">“no question”</a> that he would be confirmed with bipartisan support. That’s partly why Mr. Obama nominated him this time, and also why Mr. McConnell denied him a hearing — he knew he couldn’t prevent a Senate vote once Americans saw an eminently qualified and reasonable jurist testify on live TV.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the very least, Mr. Trump could follow President Obama’s example and pick a centrist — someone who commands wide respect and operates within the bounds of mainstream legal thought. That would be an appropriate gesture from a man who lost the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes and will enter office with the <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/199352/trump-transition-approval-lower-predecessors.aspx" target="_blank">lowest approval</a><a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/199352/trump-transition-approval-lower-predecessors.aspx"> ratings</a> in recent history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The shameful, infuriating actions of the Senate Republicans won’t be ignored in the history books. In a desperate effort to keep a conservative majority on the court, they rejected their own professed values of preserving American institutions. There’s little hope that they will come to their senses now, but they and Mr. Trump have the power, and the obligation, to fix the mess they created.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/opinion/sunday/the-stolen-supreme-court-seat.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>, The Editorial Borad, December 24, 2016<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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The Stolen Supreme Court Seat

Soon after his inauguration next month, President-elect Donald Trump will nominate someone to the Supreme Court, which has been hamstrung by...

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Trump to inherit more than 100 court vacancies, plans to reshape judiciary

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc43GKgsYq-I6vGT5-te_WaIR-sKbg9J0xslQmc9EyChWUPsJVSCfkaEFypntmQkmNNmLIyuU-OQ_S2ea-LXn8bNKoqc_MWMyi2jxHp9AWoDXTQ5a3vZEuQROAxsb9dB9IlDECEzwzDEI/s1600/SOL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc43GKgsYq-I6vGT5-te_WaIR-sKbg9J0xslQmc9EyChWUPsJVSCfkaEFypntmQkmNNmLIyuU-OQ_S2ea-LXn8bNKoqc_MWMyi2jxHp9AWoDXTQ5a3vZEuQROAxsb9dB9IlDECEzwzDEI/s400/SOL.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Donald Trump is set to inherit an uncommon number of vacancies in the federal courts in addition to the open Supreme Court seat, giving the president-elect a monumental opportunity to reshape the judiciary after taking office.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The estimated 103 judicial vacancies that President Obama is expected to hand over to Trump in the Jan. 20 transition of power is nearly double the 54 openings Obama found eight years ago following George W. Bush’s presidency.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Confirmation of Obama’s judicial nominees slowed to a crawl after Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015. Obama White House officials blame Senate Republicans for what they characterize as an unprecedented level of obstruction in blocking the Democratic president’s court picks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The result is a multitude of openings throughout the federal circuit and district courts that will allow the new Republican president to quickly make a wide array of lifetime appointments.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">State gun control laws, abortion restrictions, voter laws, anti-discrimination measures and immigrant issues are all matters that are increasingly heard by federal judges and will be influenced by the new composition of the courts. Trump has vowed to choose ideologues in the mold of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon — a prospect that has activists on the right giddy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I’m optimistic he’ll come at this right out of the gate,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group that has opposed many of Obama’s court choices.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Every president can expect to make a huge impact,” Severino added. “[Trump] is unique in having campaigned really hard on this issue — the significance of the courts, and of the Supreme Court in particular.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme Court vacancy created by Scalia’s death in February was a motivating issue for many conservative voters, especially evangelical Christians, to turn out for Trump. Senate Republicans refused to hold even a hearing on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, for the Scalia seat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Democrats accuse Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, of intentionally denying Obama’s nominees a fair hearing and running out the clock in hopes that a Republican would succeed him, as Trump has.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Twenty-five of Obama’s court nominees were pending on the Senate floor, after having been approved out of the committee with bipartisan support, but did not get a vote before the Senate ended its two-year term before the holidays, according to White House spokesman Eric Schultz.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Republican tactics have been shameful and will forever leave a stain on the United States Senate,” Schultz said. “Republican congressional dysfunction has now metastasized to the third branch of government, and that is not a legacy to be proud of.”</div><br /><b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-inherit-more-than-100-court-vacancies-plans-to-reshape-judiciary/2016/12/25/d190dd18-c928-11e6-85b5-76616a33048d_story.html" target="_blank">Click here to read the full article</a></b><br /><br />Source: The Washington Post, Philip Rucker and Robert Barnes, December 25, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Trump to inherit more than 100 court vacancies, plans to reshape judiciary

Donald Trump is set to inherit an uncommon number of vacancies in the federal courts in addition to the open Supreme Court seat, giving the ...

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Dylann Roof Found Guilty in Charleston Church Massacre

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3psWBGxf_X3jCVwYgHygOppsW40fkXziegQ3NdryI-vZNTlsWaX1y79Nc_CBuKGABtVuz367DjTLAZqSqVcQORAkcPulfaw89a9i7ijdu6ZnZDT-4T6BN1gFyQ-2qmwIDOlm1BLxSpw/s1600/Dylann+Roof+SC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dylann Roof Found Guilty in Charleston Church Massacre" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3psWBGxf_X3jCVwYgHygOppsW40fkXziegQ3NdryI-vZNTlsWaX1y79Nc_CBuKGABtVuz367DjTLAZqSqVcQORAkcPulfaw89a9i7ijdu6ZnZDT-4T6BN1gFyQ-2qmwIDOlm1BLxSpw/s400/Dylann+Roof+SC.jpg" title="Dylann Roof Found Guilty in Charleston Church Massacre" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dylann Roof Found Guilty in Charleston Church Massacre</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dylann S. Roof, a self-radicalized young white supremacist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-church-shooting.html" target="_blank">who killed nine black parishioners last year</a> when he opened fire during a long-planned assault on Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was found guilty by a federal jury here on Thursday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The jury convicted Mr. Roof of nine counts of hate crimes resulting in death, three counts of hate crimes involving an attempt to kill (there were three survivors), nine counts of obstructing the exercise of religion resulting in death, three counts of that charge with an attempt to kill, and nine counts of using a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr. Roof, 22, stood, his hands at his side and his face emotionless, as a clerk read the verdict aloud in court. Two deputy United States marshals stood behind Mr. Roof, whose lawyers also stood nearby.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He will face the same jurors next month when they gather on Jan. 3 to begin a second and more suspenseful phase of his trial to decide whether he will be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the first verdicts were read, a few women in the courtroom nodded with satisfaction. But as the clerk read the counts, a process that took about 12 minutes, the women eventually drew still. After the court adjourned, the two adult survivors of the attack, Felicia Sanders and Polly Sheppard, shared a long embrace.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Reaction was swift. “It is my hope that the survivors, the families and the people of South Carolina can find some peace in the fact that justice has been served,” Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina said in a statement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The jury reached its verdict hours after hearing closing arguments in the case. The outcome seemed a foregone conclusion from the first minutes of the trial, which began on Dec. 7 and included a swift acknowledgment from the chief defense lawyer, David I. Bruck, that Mr. Roof was responsible for the “astonishing, horrible attack” on June 17, 2015.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, Mr. Roof had chillingly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/dylann-roof-shooting-charleston-south-carolina-church-video.html" target="_blank">confessed to investigators nearly 18 months</a>earlier and revealed his purpose in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/09/us/dylann-roof-evidence.html" target="_blank">blatantly racist manifesto</a> that he published online. His choice of targets seemed intensely premeditated — he scouted the church half a dozen times — although he also researched other black churches and a festival elsewhere in South Carolina before settling on Charleston because, he wrote, it is the “most historic city in my state.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During 53 minutes before the jury, Assistant United States Attorney Nathan S. Williams, in his closing statement, depicted Mr. Roof as “a man of hatred, a man who’s proven to be a coward and a man of immense racial ignorance.” Repeatedly using the word “hatred” to connect Mr. Roof to the hate-crime counts, Mr. Williams said the defendant had “executed them because he believes that they are nothing more than animals.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The prosecutor’s voice often rose in outrage, and the jurors were again shown photographs of the carnage Mr. Roof left behind. “He must be held accountable for each and every action he took in that church,” Mr. Williams urged.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As he has throughout the trial, Mr. Bruck responded by planting suggestions that Mr. Roof was mentally unstable, and thus not fully accountable. He peppered his closing statement with words like “abnormal,” “irrationality,” “senselessness,” “illogical,” “obsessive,” “delusional,” and “suicidal.” Mr. Roof told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004815369/full-dylann-roof-confession.html" target="_blank">F.B.I. in a confession shortly</a> after being arrested that he had saved ammunition to kill himself if, as he expected, he confronted the police when he left the church.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Such an argument would ordinarily be advanced during the trial’s penalty phase, but Mr. Roof said again on Thursday that he intends to<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/dylann-roof-wins-bid-to-reinstate-lawyers-in-church-massacre-trial.html" target="_blank"> represent himself</a> at that point, presumably because he hopes to avoid courtroom disclosures about his family and psychological background. Although Mr. Roof may change his mind, Thursday’s closing argument may well been Mr. Bruck’s last opportunity to plant the defense’s theory.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He referred to Mr. Roof as “lost.” He said “there is something wrong with his perception” and urged the jury “to understand what was going on in his head.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The judge, Richard M. Gergel of United States District Court, consistently refused to allow the defense to introduce what it described as “evidence of the defendant’s state of mind and personal characteristics.” Thursday was no different. When Mr. Bruck ventured too close to discussion of mental health during his closing statement, prosecutors interrupted with objections, and Judge Gergel quickly and forcefully announced: “Sustained.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Wednesday night attack at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-killings-evoke-history-of-violence-against-black-churches.html" target="_blank">the oldest A.M.E. congregation in the South</a> began less than an hour after Mr. Roof unexpectedly entered through an unlocked side door and took a seat at a weekly Bible study meeting. The congregants, including the church’s pastor, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/26/us/clementa-pinckney-felt-called-to-spiritual-and-political-service.html" target="_blank">the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney</a>, were studying the parable of the sower.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The session was passing without incident — one victim, Tywanza Sanders, even recorded a few moments on his cellphone and posted the video to Snapchat — but when the congregants closed their eyes for a familiar benediction, the staccato report of gunfire echoed through the ground-floor fellowship hall.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the congregants looked up, they saw Mr. Roof holding a Glock .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol he had bought about two months earlier and concealed in a pack on his waist. Mr. Pinckney was wounded, and the churchgoers were diving below the room’s circular tables. Mr. Roof kept firing, emptying magazine after magazine, and striking the victims at least 60 times. One crime scene photo showed one of the tables bearing an opened Bible, a folded study sheet and an empty magazine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was one of the most unfathomable racial attacks in decades, and it upended the notion of a post-racial America that some had imagined after the election of the country’s first black president. But fears of street violence eased when family members of five victims appeared at Mr. Roof’s bond hearing less than 48 hours after the killings and expressed <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/us/charleston-shooting-dylann-storm-roof.html" target="_blank">forgiveness for the accused</a>. President Obama flew to Charleston for Mr. Pinckney’s memorial service and delivered <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/thousands-gather-for-funeral-of-clementa-pinckney-in-charleston.html" target="_blank">a eulogy</a> in the form of an indignant and sorrowful meditation on race.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This elegant port city where half of all slaves disembarked and the Civil War began soon assumed a mantle of racial healing, although some in the community found the good feelings <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/us/charleston-dylann-roof-walter-scott.html" target="_blank">a superficial papering over </a>of inequities in education, law enforcement and poverty. And the wounds were reopened this month when a state court jury <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/walter-scott-michael-slager-north-charleston.html" target="_blank">deadlocked</a> in the case of Michael T. Slager, the former North Charleston police officer accused of murder for shooting an unarmed black motorist.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The victims of the attack at Mother Emanuel, as the church is known, were Mr. Pinckney; Cynthia Hurd; Susie Jackson; Ethel Lance; the Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor; Tywanza Sanders; the Rev. Daniel L. Simmons Sr.; the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton; and Myra Thompson.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The three survivors were Ms. Sanders, Ms. Sheppard and Ms. Sanders’s granddaughter, a minor identified in the indictment only as K.M. During turns on the witness stand that started and finished the testimony for the prosecution, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/us/dylann-roof-trial.html" target="_blank">Ms. Sanders</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston.html" target="_blank">Ms. Sheppard</a> identified Mr. Roof as the gunman and described the havoc that turned a house of worship into the blood-soaked scene of yet another mass killing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eight of the victims died at the church, cut down by the hollow-point rounds that Mr. Roof had brought with him from his home in the Columbia area, about two hours away.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ms. Sheppard, the government’s final witness, told jurors that Mr. Roof had approached her and asked whether she was wounded. She was not.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I’m going to leave you to tell the story,” Mr. Roof replied, according to Ms. Sheppard.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He soon fled the church on Henrietta Street, driving into the night, he said later, in “absolute awe” that he had not been confronted by police officers responding to the scene. As Mr. Roof absconded toward North Carolina, the authorities here confronted a gruesome scene and bodies shredded by bullets. Mr. Roof was arrested the next morning in Shelby, N.C., where <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004815369/full-dylann-roof-confession.html" target="_blank">F.B.I. agents questioned him</a> for about two hours and began to piece together his path to racist radicalization and how, over the course of six months, he planned the assault on Emanuel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIABGaIvjeT0isEb4lusmgWPGMl01944pG9n_ImBB_ZDnkJqAjYj2o34MjaMGcdv_47oc4I1kKA_SPVHi9I03FjKWztPZusmET_VZPssRHF_mjTA1bwHS_hohuP_qsvXEIK5q2kwcepZE/s1600/Dylann+Roof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dylann Roof photographed "proudly wearing a jacket with patches of the apartheid-era flags of South Africa and Rhodesia."" border="0" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIABGaIvjeT0isEb4lusmgWPGMl01944pG9n_ImBB_ZDnkJqAjYj2o34MjaMGcdv_47oc4I1kKA_SPVHi9I03FjKWztPZusmET_VZPssRHF_mjTA1bwHS_hohuP_qsvXEIK5q2kwcepZE/s400/Dylann+Roof.jpg" title="Dylann Roof photographed "proudly wearing a jacket with patches of the apartheid-era flags of South Africa and Rhodesia."" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dylann Roof photographed "proudly wearing a jacket bearing patches<br />of the apartheid-era flags of South Africa and Rhodesia."</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">But before Mr. Roof spoke of his beliefs, which he had detailed in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/10/us/dylann-roof-exhibit2.html" target="_blank">handwritten journal</a> and an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/13/universal/document-Dylann-Roof-manifesto.html" target="_blank">online manifesto</a>, he admitted to the attack. “I did it,” Mr. Roof said in the F.B.I. interview, which was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/dylann-roof-shooting-charleston-south-carolina-church-video.html" target="_blank">played in its entirety</a> during the third of six days of testimony.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The confession was the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case, which was bolstered by the accounts of Ms. Sanders and Ms. Sheppard, which moved courtroom observers to tears. Prosecutors also produced an array of technical evidence, such as phone records and GPS data, to demonstrate Mr. Roof’s premeditation and to document his views on race.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He wrote that he mounted the attack in Charleston because no one else would take a stand against what he perceived as an epidemic of black-on-white crime and the relegation of white Americans to second-class status. He called himself a white nationalist, as well as a white supremacist, and said he subscribed to ideologies advanced by Klansmen and Nazis. He wrote of his disdain for black and Jewish people, among others.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr. Roof proudly wore a jacket bearing patches of the apartheid-era flags of South Africa and Rhodesia and posed in photographs with the Confederate battle flag. In a consequence that he surely did not anticipate, that flag was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/us/south-carolina-confederate-flag.html" target="_blank">removed from the grounds</a> of the South Carolina State House in response to the church killings, taken down by a Republican governor and state Legislature after decades of resistance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr. Roof’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston.html" target="_blank">court-appointed lawyers</a> called no witnesses during the guilt phase of the trial, and it is unclear whether the jury will ever consider their theory that Mr. Roof’s behavior derived from mental illness.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The decision to try Mr. Roof was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/us/death-penalty-dylann-roof-charleston.html" target="_blank">a subject of some dispute</a>. Through his lawyers, he had offered to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison. Ms. Sanders and Ms. Sheppard both supported such an agreement, as did many family members of the victims.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the Justice Department chose to seek the death penalty, in part, prosecutors said in a court filing, because of Mr. Roof “expressed hatred and contempt toward African-Americans, as well as other groups.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite their reservations, Ms. Sanders and relatives of the victims <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston-church-killings.html" target="_blank">filed into Courtroom Six for nearly every moment of the trial</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr. Roof never looked toward them.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/us/dylann-roof-trial.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>, Kevin Sack, Alan Blinder, December 15, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Dylann Roof Found Guilty in Charleston Church Massacre

Dylann Roof Found Guilty in Charleston Church Massacre CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dylann S. Roof, a self-radicalized young white supremacist who kil...

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US cancels major aid package to the Philippines over human rights concerns

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJZH7DQDyIvH-N1EO41H-OQZ1g7KfsA1JAlW8ftA_gnt0x1Mg-2NZNet9g_L0t7r9HpWWcA0hE43Tqk6crCx03eiIZwtSl7Ge1W6VFRYhIMGnLD4vliQOnzcQlGXxqS2eU2kk9DX1U1Kk/s1600/Philippines-President-elect-Rodrigo-Duterte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="President Rodrigo Duterte" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJZH7DQDyIvH-N1EO41H-OQZ1g7KfsA1JAlW8ftA_gnt0x1Mg-2NZNet9g_L0t7r9HpWWcA0hE43Tqk6crCx03eiIZwtSl7Ge1W6VFRYhIMGnLD4vliQOnzcQlGXxqS2eU2kk9DX1U1Kk/s400/Philippines-President-elect-Rodrigo-Duterte.jpg" title="President Rodrigo Duterte" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">President Rodrigo Duterte</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>US embassy says there are 'significant concerns' about civil liberties under President Duterte</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The US government says it will not renew a major aid package to the Philippines worth hundreds of millions of dollars, due to concerns over the leadership of President Rodrigo Duterte.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The US embassy to the Philippines said it had “significant concerns” about civil liberties infringements in the country and declined to renew the Millennium Challenge Grant for a further five years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The grant, said to be worth over $430 million, is open to nations that "demonstrate a commitment to just and democratic governance, investments in its people, and economic freedom”. It is aimed at reducing poverty in deprived areas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"This decision reflects the Board's significant concerns around rule of law and civil liberties in the Philippines," the embassy said in a statement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Millenium Challenge Corporation will continue to monitor unfolding events in the Philippines and underscores that all country partners are expected to maintain eligibility, which includes not just a passing scorecard but also a demonstrated commitment to the rule of law, due process and respect for human rights."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The US has been openly critical of Mr Duterte's controversial 'war on drugs', during which an estimated 5,900 people have been killed in five months.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More than 1.6 million houses of drug suspects have been visited by police to invite them to surrender and stop using drugs, or disengage from the drug trade.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr Duterte responded by declaring the Philippines was to "separate" from the US in a diplomatic sense, after decades of close ties between the two countries.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“By partnering with developing countries that meet rigorous standards for good governance, from fighting corruption to respecting the rights of women and the rule of law, we are maximizing our ability to fight poverty and transform people’s lives,” Millenium Challenge Corporation CEO Dana Hyde added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The corporation announced that new grants had been given to Burkina Faso, Sri Lanka and Tunisia, with the Philippines still eligible for consideration in the future.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In October, Mr Duterte called US President Barack Obama "a son of a whore" and told him to "go to hell" following criticism of his policies.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-cancels-aid-package-philippines-human-rights-concerns-rodrigo-duterte-a7476606.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a>, Gabriel Samuels, December 15, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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US cancels major aid package to the Philippines over human rights concerns

President Rodrigo Duterte US embassy says there are 'significant concerns' about civil liberties under President Duterte The US gove...

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