Lawyers for federal death row prisoner
Dylann Roof argued to a federal appeals court that the avowed white supremacist’s convictions and death sentences in his trial for the 2015 murders of nine Black churchgoers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in
Charleston, South Carolina should be overturned because the judge presiding over his case unconstitutionally permitted Roof to represent himself while mentally incompetent.
In oral argument on May 25, 2021 before a specially constituted panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Roof’s appeal lawyers said that Roof suffered from racist delusions that prevented him from rationally determining whether to be represented by counsel at trial and in sentencing. Roof was “clearly delusional,” appeal counsel Sapna Mirchandani told the court.
Charleston Church Shooter Oral Arguments Begin By Cullen Paradis
on May 26 2021 5:52 AM Police lead suspected shooter Dylann Roof into the courthouse in Shelby, North Carolina, June 18, 2015.
Oral arguments have begun in the trial of Dylann Roof, the white nationalist who killed nine people in a 2015 shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. Defense attorneys argued from several angles that Roof was unfit to stand trial for the shooting at the historic Black church and that the federal charges themselves were improper.
The trial is taking place in the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. A motion in 2020 noted that Roof had been diagnosed with various mental disorders and mirrors the current argument that he is “too disconnected from reality” to stand trial.
While their client sits on federal death row for the killings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation, the attorneys for Dylann Roof are now arguing that his “delusional belief” that he would be saved by white supremacists should have been enough evidence to a judge to prove he wasn’t competent when he was standing trial.
By Cherranda Smith
Attorneys for
Dylann Roof, the man who killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, argued Tuesday (May 25) that he shouldn’t have been able to represent himself during part of his trial. Roof’s legal team cited his “delusional belief” that white nationalists would save Roof only if he didn’t put mental health evidence into his defense should have proven to the trial judge at the time that he wasn’t competent to represent himself.
The Huffington Post, Roof’s attorneys argued before a three-judge panel this week, asking the court to vacate both Roof’s conviction and his death sentence, or remand the case to court so that a “proper competency evaluation” could take place. The attorneys argued that Roof wasn’t given this evaluation during his trial in 2017.