A federal jury Tuesday sentenced Dylann Roof to death for killing nine black church members in Charleston, S.C. in a racially motivated attack in 2015.
Roof, who is white, faced either life in prison or execution for the slayings on June 17, 2015. The Justice Department said he is the first person to get the death penalty for federal hate crimes.
The jury reached the unanimous decision after about three hours of deliberations.
In his closing argument on Tuesday, Roof denied that he was filled with hatred.
“Wouldn’t it be fair to say that the prosecution hates me because they’re trying to give me the death penalty?” Roof asked rhetorically. “Anyone who hates anything, in their mind has a good reason for it. And sometimes that’s because they’ve been misled and sometimes it isn’t. But I would say that in this case the prosecution, along with anyone else who hates me, are the ones who have been misled.”
Acting as his own attorney, Roof concluded his closing argument after only five minutes.
“That’s all,” he said.
The brevity of Roof’s statement stood in stark contrast to the prosecution’s closing argument, which lasted for two hours.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson reminded jurors how the nine victims of the 2015 massacre at Emanuel AME Church had welcomed Roof, a stranger who had shown up at their Wednesday evening Bible study.
“The defendant had come not to learn, not to receive the Word, but he came with a hateful heart and a Glock 45,” Richardson said.
Richardson mentioned all of the victims by name, describing their importance to the community and their families, and the terrible loss caused by their untimely deaths. He contrasted these “particularly good people” with the horrific nature of Roof’s crimes, his racist views and “his belief in Hitler as a saint, as an icon, as someone to be emulated.”
The prosecution showed the jury photos of Roof with his now familiar blank stare, pointing a pistol at the camera during target practice.
“He also chose to videotape himself doing it so that he could see the very last images that these victims would see,” Richardson said. “He wanted to see what he would look like as he stood over them.”
Inside the courtroom, Roof looked straight forward, displaying no obvious emotion as the prosecution showed the jury graphic photos of the deceased victims’ bodies lying on the bloodstained floor of their church meeting room.
Richardson then went on to cite Roof’s apparent lack of remorse for the crimes.
He quoted from a journal removed from the defendant’s jail cell back in August of 2015 in which Roof writes, “I do not regret what I did. I am not sorry. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed.”
The prosecutor reminded jurors that even during this trial, Roof had entered the courtroom wearing hand drawn racist symbols on his shoes.
“Unrepentant, no remorse,” Richardson added.
At the conclusion of his closing argument, Richardson urged jurors, “Sentence this defendant to death for killing Clementa Pinckney.”
He repeated the phrase eight more times to add the names of each victim.
The same panel of three black and nine white jurors who convicted Roof back in December must now decide whether the white supremacist should face execution for his crimes. If the jury fails to reach a unanimous decision, the judge will sentence Roof to life in prison without the possibility of release.
Jurors entered their deliberations after hearing days of witness testimony and evidence from the prosecution, but very little from the defense. Acting as his own attorney, Roof rested his case yesterday without calling any witnesses or testifying on his own behalf.
At the beginning of the sentencing hearing, his brief opening statement made no mention of his crimes or white supremacist views. Instead, Roof used his opening statement to explain that he was serving as his own attorney to prevent his defense team from presenting evidence about his mental health.
“There is nothing wrong with me psychologically,” Roof told the jury in his January 4 opening statement.
Roof expressed similar concerns outside the jury’s presence during a Monday afternoon charge conference, where the judge and attorneys were discussing the specific instructions to be given to jurors before they began deliberations. Roof expressed concern about what details would be released from a pre-trial competency hearing after the verdict.
Judge Gergel said he had sealed much of the information from the competency hearing to protect the defendant’s right to a fair trial. But Gergel said that after the trial, he would have to weigh Roof’s concerns against a strong First Amendment right for public access to information.
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