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.
Dylann Roof’s appellate attorneys claim his federal conviction and death sentence should be reversed because he was “disconnected from reality” when he represented himself during trial.
The Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Courthouse, home of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. (Photo by Acroterion from Wikipedia Commons via Courthouse News)
(CN) Attorneys for the white supremacist convicted of slaying nine Black churchgoers in South Carolina argued before a federal appeals court Tuesday that he was delusional and should not have been allowed to represent himself.
In a virtual hearing before the Richmond, Virginia-based Fourth Circuit, Dylann Roof’s defense team sought to have the case vacated and remanded for a new competency hearing. They argue he was “disconnected from reality“ when he acted as his own attorney in his 2016-2017 federal murder and hate crimes trial.
Charleston shooter lawyer: Racist delusion showed incapacity
MEG KINNARD, Associated Press
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FILE - In this April 10, 2017, file photo, Dylann Roof enters the courtroom at the Charleston County Judicial Center in Charleston, S.C. On Tuesday, May 25, 2021, Roof, on federal death row for the racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation, is making his appellate argument that his conviction and death sentence should be overturned. (Grace Beahm/The Post And Courier via AP, Pool, File)Grace Beahm/AP
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) The man on federal death row for the racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation was wrongly allowed to represent himself during a critical phase of his trial, his attorneys argued Tuesday, saying Dylann Roof s continuing “delusional belief” he’d be saved by white nationalists but only if he kept mental health evidence out of his defense should have shown his trial judge he wasn t compet
Roof, who shot nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation, believed he'd be saved by white nationalists if he kept mental health evidence out of.
Attorneys for Dylann Roof, the self-proclaimed white supremacist who was sentenced to death for the 2015 murders of nine members of a Black South Carolina church, argued Tuesday that their client should not have bee