Jury in Dylann Roof death penalty trial expected to start deliberations Tuesday

<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrlFYfwTy_X7D1S635PGsRn2Fhd6xT2S0kdoXC2BfiWdxWG-vQL4_UDt4DYUgUa7JXbtWbH_lx9Pu-11jx4LBDXL4bJg_-I17wtDZwqCp1XYC5W-eJASxNBSV6fRFv6L5JP4Iq4jDW840/s1600/future+mass+killer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrlFYfwTy_X7D1S635PGsRn2Fhd6xT2S0kdoXC2BfiWdxWG-vQL4_UDt4DYUgUa7JXbtWbH_lx9Pu-11jx4LBDXL4bJg_-I17wtDZwqCp1XYC5W-eJASxNBSV6fRFv6L5JP4Iq4jDW840/s400/future+mass+killer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>CHARLESTON, S.C. — Federal prosecutors are nearing the end of their presentation to convince jurors that Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof deserves to be executed, and the presiding judge said he expects jurors will begin deliberations in the case Tuesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Friday, the third day of the penalty phase in the trial, prosecutors again highlighted Roof’s racist writings, and the impact his crime had on those whose loved ones were killed. FBI Agent Joseph Hamski read aloud some of Roof’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/dylann-roof-says-its-not-fair-he-has-to-hear-so-much-from-the-loved-ones-of-his-victims/2017/01/05/e77a2156-d347-11e6-945a-76f69a399dd5_story.html" target="_blank">rants in a journal found in his jail cell</a> and his online communications, where Roof proclaimed that white women who date black men are “race-traitors” and bemoaned that more people would not take hateful action.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“If we were to, for example, become completely ruthless with blacks, or implement a harsh eugenics program, who could stop us?” Roof wrote in his journal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof, 22, was convicted last month of federal hate crimes for his 2015 rampage at Charleston’s historic Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he fatally shot nine parishioners because they were black. Jurors are now considering whether he should face the death penalty or life in prison.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel said Friday that he will provide proposed jury instructions to prosecutors and Roof over the weekend, and he hopes the case will be in the jury’s hands by Tuesday. Prosecutors had already indicated that they expect to rest their case Monday, and Roof, who is representing himself, has said he will present no evidence. Gergel said he will then send jurors home and bring them back for closing arguments the following day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When jurors’ deliberations begin, they will weigh whether the aggravating factors in the case — Roof’s motivation, his lack of remorse and the impact of his crimes on the victims’ loved ones — outweigh any mitigating evidence, such as Roof’s offer to plead guilty or the possibility that he could change.</div><br /><b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/deliberations-in-dylann-roof-death-penalty-trial-expected-to-start-tuesday/2017/01/06/1338a482-d412-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html" target="_blank">Click here to read the full article</a></b><br /><br />Source: Washington Post, Matt Zapotosky, January 6, 2017<br /><br /><h2><br />With federal case nearing end, judge indefinitely delays Dylann Roof's state trial</h2><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9bvH0VA-X8WMkJVrrqtLAUpJya2dLTCwl3xEAx80eddegVVKbmqaJpzzFxMVlOknKOWtutymOkjKpPZwZB7HSclKRcXCMMUovmi_F47j24bj1zJCKMYbPsrY0iFU5_2QkSgMT81s-Dxs/s1600/jury-box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Jury box" border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9bvH0VA-X8WMkJVrrqtLAUpJya2dLTCwl3xEAx80eddegVVKbmqaJpzzFxMVlOknKOWtutymOkjKpPZwZB7HSclKRcXCMMUovmi_F47j24bj1zJCKMYbPsrY0iFU5_2QkSgMT81s-Dxs/s320/jury-box.jpg" title="Jury box" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With Dylann Roof's federal death penalty trial nearing an end, a judge on Thursday indefinitely delayed a state proceeding that was scheduled for later this month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">State authorities were the first to charge Roof, 22, in the June 17, 2015, racially motivated attack that killed nine black worshipers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. But with that murder case moving toward trial last year, federal prosecutors decided to also pursue the death penalty, and a judge set an earlier date for the hate crimes trial in U.S. District Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was the 1st time both state and federal prosecutors simultaneously pursued a defendant's execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof is now representing himself in the penalty phase of his federal trial. His state case was to be heard Jan. 17, but Circuit Judge J.C. Nicholson signed paperwork delaying it "until further order of this court."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nicholson noted in the filing the ongoing federal trial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson is leading the state's prosecution of Roof on nine counts of murder, three of attempted murder and a firearms charge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She lamented the federal trial's earlier date when it was set last year. At one point, she pointed out the federal government's track record for actually carrying out executions and said the federal proceeding would have "little or no relevance to the defendant's ultimate fate."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But it remains unclear how she will proceed with the prosecution after a jury decides Roof's sentence on his 33 federal convictions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We have been closely monitoring and in constant consultation with the federal prosecutors who have done an outstanding job," she said Thursday. "Our plans have not changed, but we will continue to re-evaluate as the circumstances dictate."</div><br />Source: postandcourier.com, January 7, 2017<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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Jury in Dylann Roof death penalty trial expected to start deliberations Tuesday

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Federal prosecutors are nearing the end of their presentation to convince jurors that Charleston church shooter Dylann Ro...

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Dylann Roof Is Complaining About Hearing From Too Many Of His Victims’ Anguished Family Members

<div style="text-align: justify;"><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/AVvXsEivVvbIlsKU3oA1PeutnILJFBfJYXr_p_PHyt-Dp5s-UQ2CxXaFm9YjnRF6d5nvtqsheUAI5qKhRqqAj2UveCWlGMiqKnY5g5pyAVOro3JfFQD8BiIEODBujEFXxb6Jtdg8hmXaeWVDTj8/s1600/Dylann+Roof+SC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dylann Roof" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivVvbIlsKU3oA1PeutnILJFBfJYXr_p_PHyt-Dp5s-UQ2CxXaFm9YjnRF6d5nvtqsheUAI5qKhRqqAj2UveCWlGMiqKnY5g5pyAVOro3JfFQD8BiIEODBujEFXxb6Jtdg8hmXaeWVDTj8/s400/Dylann+Roof+SC.jpg" title="Dylann Roof" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dylann Roof</td></tr></tbody></table>CHARLESTON — Dylann Roof, the gunman who massacred nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, complained in court filings Thursday that too many witnesses are testifying about the anguish and horror the victims and their families during and after the shooting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The motion where Roof objects to what’s known as victim impact testimony comes on the second day of the sentencing phase of his trial. Last month, he was convicted on 33 charges and now the jury will decide if he receives the death penalty or life in prison.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prosecutors said they have prepared as many as 38 witnesses to deliver testimony to illustrate “the void” felt in these victims’ families in the wake of the tragedy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof is continuing to act as his own attorney. But in a contentious courtroom exchange that happened Thursday during the jury’s morning break, David Bruck, Roof’s stand-by counsel, spoke on his client’s behalf calling the proceeding “a runaway freight train.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bruck revealed to Judge Gergel that he and his colleagues, not Roof, had drafted the motion to limit victim testimony on his behalf. And Bruck implored the judge to allow him to be able to object on Roof’s behalf — Gergel denied the request.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I have to be heard on his behalf because he cannot do it,” Bruck begged the judge. “This man cannot protect his own rights. He cannot do it.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hoping to persuade the judge, Bruck added, “This is his sentencing not a memorial service.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prosecutor Jay Richardson said that he doesn’t believe that the government will call all 38 witnesses on their list, but added that Roof “is the one who chose to kill nine people…particularly good people!”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Roof’s motion regarding victim impact, Gergel told Roof he “appreciates” the issues he raised about the amount of victim impact testimony and said he is “monitoring this.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the first day, the government was only able to call its first four witnesses due to the length of each person’s time on the stand.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The testimony, for example, included Emanuel AME pastor Sen. Clementa Pinckney’s widow Jennifer recounting how her and her daughter hid in the church that night to survive the shooting. Witnesses have also detailed heartwarming tributes to their fallen loved ones.<br /><br />Roof’s motion cited several well-known capital trials in an attempt to sway the court that the amount of victim impact testimony is excessive.<br /><br />He said that at the trial of Oklahoma city bomber Timothy McVeigh, there were 38 victim impact witnesses — the same number as Roof’s trial — despite the fact that in that incident there were 168 people who were killed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><b><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikehayes/dylann-roof-witness-impact-motion" target="_blank">Click here to read the full article</a></b><br /><br />Source: BuzzFeed News, Mike Hayes, January 5, 2017<br /><br /><br /><h2>Dylann Roof cold to victims, but apologized to his parents</h2><br /><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/AVvXsEgb8PAe9MYFvc5EpAKb6pzu8W_Adcn-uwkwuiRIutvUjwQZzZwjYAcFEIRy23404pDhfx0X9LZNy7JTeCYWcnPA6r8daZcF1sbGXty_jhAThUySrmSBkbH4ZiHb28yVRwSKmifE16L9cic/s1600/Dylann+Roof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dylann Roof" border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8PAe9MYFvc5EpAKb6pzu8W_Adcn-uwkwuiRIutvUjwQZzZwjYAcFEIRy23404pDhfx0X9LZNy7JTeCYWcnPA6r8daZcF1sbGXty_jhAThUySrmSBkbH4ZiHb28yVRwSKmifE16L9cic/s400/Dylann+Roof.jpg" title="Dylann Roof" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dylann Roof</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">COLUMBIA, S.C. — Before Dylann Roof was arrested for killing nine black church members, he scribbled a note to his mother, apologizing for all the repercussions his actions would cause. Weeks later, in a jailhouse journal, he wrote that he had no regrets.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The evidence, along with his manifesto, hundreds of photos and a confession to the FBI, draw a portrait of a young white man consumed by racial hatred who carefully planned the killings, picking out meek, innocent black people who likely wouldn’t fight back.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jurors who convicted Roof of hate crimes and other charges will decide whether he should be executed or face life in prison.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">ROOF AND RACISM</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof has pointed out that there was no dramatic confrontation that led him to begin hating blacks. Instead, when the Trayvon Martin case made the news, Roof went to Wikipedia to read about the black teenager who was shot to death in 2012 by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was acquitted. That led Roof to research black on white crime and to websites that offer false statistics inflating how often those crimes happen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof was careful in his writings to say his beliefs came just from himself, not his parents. But one of Roof’s old friends suggested otherwise.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I don’t think his parents liked his decisions, the choices that he made to have black friends,” said Christon Scriven, who is black.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof would go between partying with black friends and spewing racist diatribes to his white buddies, Scriven said shortly after the shootings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof also believed the false claims that blacks were better off as slaves and are inferior at their cores to whites. He compared African-Americans to dogs, saying everyone feels bad when a man beats a dog, but no one is surprised when a dog bites a man.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As he sat in jail after his arrest, Roof mused about adopting a white child someday and sought to explain his thoughts on other races, according to a journal found in Roof’s cell.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lauren Knapp of the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office read the journal aloud in court Thursday. In it, Roof wrote that he felt he would probably eventually be pardoned if he were sentenced to life in prison and believed Adolf Hitler would eventually be canonized as a saint.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He also ranted that Jewish people made America worse by pushing desegregation, that the Hispanic population was growing too quickly and introducing more crime to the nation and Muslims were just as bad as blacks and perhaps more dangerous.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The Muslim’s violent behavior is increased exponentially by their sick religion,” Roof wrote.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">THE SON</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When authorities searched Roof’s car, they found birthday cards from his mom and dad, who were divorced, and what appeared to be suicide notes to each of his parents.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof’s writings to his mom show a son worried about how she would feel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“At this moment I miss you very much,” he wrote. “And as childish as it sounds, I wish I was in your arms.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof’s mom suffered a heart attack in court shortly after prosecutors called him a cold and calculated killer in their opening statement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof worked for his contractor father for a time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I love you and I’m sorry,” Roof wrote. “You were a good dad.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Roof’s birthday card, his father promised to buy him a gun.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">THE FRIEND</h3><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/AVvXsEhtVx1vrEcqbmSYukxfjiFkv18cLQBFMIEjtOX6RTVRIHXB6ecVbQMXFXDOwf0CWvH-zVS4QJjwLRzIvzr1IemYKMHamx6mdkH6J6eXopGocs4rf6dyjwUCAM53ogxET8DJ-NkHXfTNAAY/s1600/Dylann+Roof_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dylann Roof" border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtVx1vrEcqbmSYukxfjiFkv18cLQBFMIEjtOX6RTVRIHXB6ecVbQMXFXDOwf0CWvH-zVS4QJjwLRzIvzr1IemYKMHamx6mdkH6J6eXopGocs4rf6dyjwUCAM53ogxET8DJ-NkHXfTNAAY/s400/Dylann+Roof_02.jpg" title="Dylann Roof" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dylann Roof</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof had a few friends he would hang out with when he got tired of his parents. One of them, Joey Meek, pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about what he knew about Roof’s plans.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meek is awaiting sentencing. His guilty plea included an offer to testify against his friend if asked, but he hasn’t been called to the stand.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meek and Roof were good friends until Roof dropped out of high school. They reconnected in the months before the shooting, drinking and smoking marijuana. Scriven also would hang out with them at Meek’s house.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Both friends said he talked about a mass shooting. Scriven said Roof wanted to target the College of Charleston, which Roof denied in his jailhouse journal. Meek said Roof talked about killing blacks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meek insisted to reporters he had no idea of Roof’s exact plan and was stunned to see his friend in a surveillance photo on TV the morning after the shooting. “I didn’t THINK it was him. I KNEW it was him,” Meek said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">THE LONER</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Roof’s opening statement to jurors to start the penalty phase of his trial, he said there was nothing wrong with him psychologically except “I’m probably better at constantly embarrassing myself than anyone who’s ever existed.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Agents recovered hundreds of photos from Roof’s cameras. Some were of him posing with the Confederate flag, others were at historic sites across South Carolina. They appeared to be taken with a tripod and a timer, and he is the only person in almost all of them. There are even a few of Roof with a cat in his bedroom.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof wrote in his jailhouse journal that he enjoyed being sad and having pity on himself because sadness was such a strong emotion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roof told agents when he confessed he reached out to no other white supremacy groups and spoke to no one else about his plans.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His journal ends with another lament: “One of my only regrets is that I was never able to fall in love.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Source: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/dylann-roof-cold-to-victims-but-apologized-to-his-parents/2017/01/06/ff2c0a5c-d3ed-11e6-9651-54a0154cf5b3_story.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>, Associated Press, Jeffrey Collins , January 6, 2017<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 Is Complaining About Hearing From Too Many Of His Victims’ Anguished Family Members

Dylann Roof CHARLESTON — Dylann Roof, the gunman who massacred nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, complained in court...

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As use of death penalty declines, the case for its repeal grows stronger

<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/AVvXsEh84h15LtrghbRdHvF0Y1mpxUBQzkT__lpIR2crQ4KLTpf4ls030C79qejzPyFm654y7ea0Tw_KcDHAIFbUQvQc8hbAtrYL4sK02nRchVmUwu-GfrqqNGF1GK5E3jeC9AV77Gp-R-yZEdM/s1600/Huntsville+Unit+Texas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas" border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84h15LtrghbRdHvF0Y1mpxUBQzkT__lpIR2crQ4KLTpf4ls030C79qejzPyFm654y7ea0Tw_KcDHAIFbUQvQc8hbAtrYL4sK02nRchVmUwu-GfrqqNGF1GK5E3jeC9AV77Gp-R-yZEdM/s400/Huntsville+Unit+Texas.jpg" title="The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The death penalty is rare, even in Texas, where just seven executions were carried out this year. In some places, it's almost nonexistent. In Dallas and Harris counties, not a single death sentence was handed down this year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is good news.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Executions are costly. Their value in deterring would-be murderers and others from committing their crimes is small. And they are disproportionately carried out against persons of color. Of the nine men sentenced to death in Dallas or Tarrant counties since 2012, all are African-American. In Harris County, 15 of the 18 more recent death sentences have been handed down against black defendants, the other three against Latinos.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Worst of all, an execution is the outcome of an error-prone system, and one that simply can't be undone once carried out.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That insight was at the heart of the ruling 45 years ago next year in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the death penalty violated the Constitution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The penalty of death differs from all other forms of criminal punishment, not in degree but in kind," Justice Potter Stewart wrote in one of five concurring opinions in Furman vs. Georgia. "It is unique in its total irrevocability. It is unique in its rejection of rehabilitation of the convict as a basic purpose of criminal justice."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Four years later, the court ruled that with proper attention to racial fairness and other factors, the executions could resume. But ever since, Texas has had a starring role in demonstrating just how naive that second decision was.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's distressing to note that support for the death penalty remains strong in many states, including Texas (<a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/29/support-for-death-penalty-lowest-in-more-than-four-decades/" target="_blank">though that support is at its lowest level in decades</a>). There is hope in the<a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2015/12/30/editorial-could-texas-be-losing-its-appetite-for-the-death-penalty" target="_blank"> fact that actual use of the death penalty is fading fast. </a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the past five years, 26 inmates on Texas' death row have been removed. Eighteen saw their sentences reduced. Seven died in custody. One was exonerated and released.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even Texas' famously tough-on-crime Court of Criminal Appeals has grown far more careful when it comes to executions. In the past two years, the court has issued a total of 15 stays of execution. In the three years before that, it averaged just one per year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nationwide, the use of the death penalty is also at a low.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's encouraging, too, to see <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2016/09/02/can-argue-whether-death-penalty-cruel-legal-certainly-unusual-fair" target="_blank">Justice Stephen Breyer continue his sometimes-lonely crusade </a>to convince the rest of the court to take up again, as they did in 1972 and 1976, the overall question of whether the Bill of Rights prohibits executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The penalty is so rare and so random in its application, it should no longer be tolerated: "Individuals who are executed are not the 'worst of the worst,'" Breyer wrote Dec. 12, "but, rather, are individuals chosen at random, on the basis, perhaps of geography, perhaps of the views of individual prosecutors, or still worse on the basis of race."</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2016/12/27/use-death-penalty-declines-case-repeal-grows-stronger" target="_blank">Dallas News</a>, Editorial, December 27, 2016<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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As use of death penalty declines, the case for its repeal grows stronger

The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas The death penalty is rare, even in Texas, where just seven executions were carried out this year. In some ...

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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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