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Dylann Roof to Represent Himself at Trial in Charleston Church Shootings Dylann Roof to Represent Himself at Trial in Charleston Church Shootings
(about 5 hours later)
A federal judge ruled on Monday that Dylann S. Roof, who was charged in the massacre of nine black worshipers at a Charleston, S.C., church in 2015, can represent himself in his federal death-penalty trial. ATLANTA — A federal judge on Monday granted Dylann S. Roof’s request to represent himself in his hate crimes trial on charges of killing nine African-American parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., raising the unsettling specter that the avowed white supremacist could cross-examine survivors and family members of the deceased.
The judge, Richard M. Gergel of Federal District Court in Charleston, called the request by Mr. Roof, 22, “strategically unwise,” but allowed him to have a lawyer present as backup. Death penalty experts predicted that Mr. Roof, by controlling his own case, may decline to present evidence of his own mental instability that his highly regarded defense team would probably have emphasized in both the guilt and penalty phases of the trial. Federal prosecutors are seeking to execute Mr. Roof, who has offered to plead guilty to the 33 charges against him in exchange for a life sentence.
“I do find defendant has the personal capacity to self-representation,” Judge Gergel said, according to The Post & Courier. He added, “It is a decision you have the right to make.” Jury selection in Mr. Roof’s trial had been delayed for three weeks after his lawyers petitioned Judge Richard M. Gergel of Federal District Court in Charleston to declare him incompetent to stand trial. A two-day hearing on that question was closed and related court filings have been sealed, but it now seems that their request related to Mr. Roof’s desire to represent himself.
Mr. Roof had been represented by David I. Bruck, a noted death-penalty lawyer, who slid over from the lead chair after the judge’s decision. The ruling came days after Mr. Roof was found competent to stand trial. On Friday, having studied a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation and heard testimony from other witnesses, Judge Gergel ruled that Mr. Roof was competent. Under federal law, that is a legal determination that the defendant was not suffering from a mental disease or defect that rendered him unable to assist in his defense or understand the consequences of the case against him.
The Justice Department is seeking the death penalty for Mr. Roof, a self-described white supremacist who is accused of the fatal shootings on June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. On Monday, as jury selection was about to begin, Mr. Roof, dressed in prison stripes, asked the judge for permission to serve as his own lawyer. According to a report in the Charleston newspaper The Post and Courier, Mr. Gergel advised Mr. Roof against doing so, noting the expertise of a legal team led by the noted capital defense lawyer David I. Bruck. But having declared Mr. Roof competent, he said the defendant had the right to self-representation under the Sixth Amendment.
The charges against Mr. Roof include hate crimes resulting in death. The main question in his case has concerned whether he would receive the death penalty in a second phase after a determination of guilt. “I do find the defendant has the personal capacity to self-representation,” Mr. Gergel said. “I continue to believe it is strategically unwise, but it is a decision you have the right to make.”
Last week, he offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, but prosecutors refused the deal. The newspaper reported that Mr. Roof smiled slightly as he returned to the defense table, where Mr. Bruck moved over to give Mr. Roof his seat. Mr. Bruck and other members of his team will now serve as “standby counsel,” sitting with and advising Mr. Roof.
Jury selection began on Monday. Mr. Gergel, Mr. Roof and the prosecutors then began the process of winnowing a pool of 512 people down to 12 jurors and six alternates. That process was expected to last several weeks.
Mr. Roof, 22, stands accused of killing the church’s pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney, three other ministers and five stalwarts of the historic congregation at a Bible study session in the fellowship hall on June 17, 2015. He is accused of sitting with the group for close to an hour before removing a Glock pistol from his fanny pack and opening fire while making racist comments. Two women and a child in the Bible study survived, as did Mr. Pinckney’s wife, Jennifer, and their younger daughter, who were hiding in his office.
Investigators later found a white supremacist diatribe on a website that Mr. Roof was accused of writing, as well as photographs of him posing with Confederate flags and various racist symbols. He was captured the next day while driving in North Carolina.
Other defendants in recent capital cases who have chosen to represent themselves have not fared well.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing 13 people and wounding or shooting at 32 others in a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., the worst mass murder at a military base in the country’s history. As his own attorney, he did not call witnesses or offer testimony, instead making only a brief opening statement that he had committed the crimes after deciding to switch sides in what he saw as an American war against Islam.
In 2015, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. received the death penalty for killing three people at two Jewish centers in Kansas the previous year. Mr. Miller, who had a history of making anti-Semitic remarks, represented himself and shouted “Heil Hitler” in court after being sentenced.
Scott Panetti, a Navy veteran diagnosed as a schizophrenic, was sentenced to die in Texas for murdering the parents of his second wife in 1992 after a trial in which he represented himself while wearing a purple cowboy suit and attempted to subpoena witnesses including Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy and Pope John Paul II. The jury deliberated for one day.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that provides information and analysis about the death penalty, said it was not common for defendants in capital cases to represent themselves.
“It particularly happens with defendants who are mentally ill or seriously emotionally disturbed who do not want evidence of their mental illness or emotional disturbance presented at trial,” he said.
Mr. Dunham said self-representation often meant that the jury did not get a full picture of the defendant’s mental condition. “Key issues never get raised because the defendant knows nothing about the law,” he said, “and often with mentally ill defendants whose murders were a product of their mental illness they will attempt to justify their conduct instead of presenting evidence that their mental illness makes them less culpable for that conduct.”
The judge’s decision is likely to make Mr. Roof’s trial even more traumatic for the survivors and family members. “A capital murder trial forces the family members to relive the horror of the murder, and when an emotionally disturbed defendant is permitted to cross-examine those witnesses and ask questions that may be based on a delusional view of reality, it only makes things worse,” Mr. Dunham said.