US jury gives church shooter death penalty

A US jury on Tuesday condemned self-described white supremacist Dylann Roof to death over the massacre of nine black worshippers in a South Carolina church in June 2015 – a crime that shocked the nation.

Roof, 22, was convicted last month of 33 federal charges – including hate crimes resulting in death – in connection with the shooting spree at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston.

The slayings once again exposed the deep divides in America over race and access to guns.

Roof showed little reaction to the decision, delivered just hours after the 12-member jury retired to deliberate, though he occasionally seemed to be smiling.

“I still feel like I had to do it,” Roof told jurors earlier in a semicoherent closing argument.

Roof represented himself in the sentencing phase of the trial, against the advice of his lawyers and the judge. He called no witnesses and offered no evidence for the jury to consider.

After the jury offered its sentencing verdict, Roof asked for new attorneys so he could move for a retrial, but Gergel told him to provide specific reasons for his request yesterday.

Earlier, prosecutor Jay Richardson urged jurors to sentence Roof to death for “this cold, calculated, malicious killing”.

Richardson noted Roof only expressed sorrow that he put his parents through an emotional trial during which his mother suffered a heart attack after a survivor’s gripping testimony.

“He had sorrow for them. He had pity for himself,” he said.

“But his sadness was reserved for the little white children that have to live with African Americans.”

During the first phase of the trial, Roof exhibited no signs of remorse as survivors recounted the rampage in heart-rending detail.

“Somebody had to do something because black people are killing white people every day,” Roof said without emotion to the FBI special agent questioning him. “They rape 100 white people a day.”

In notes confiscated from Roof in prison in August 2015, he wrote that he was “not sorry”.

“I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed,” the notes said.

Roof’s lawyers had suggested their client was not mentally fit, but Gergel found Roof competent to stand trial – twice.

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who is herself black, said in a statement that “we hope that the completion of the prosecution provides the people of Charleston – and the people of our nation – with a measure of closure”.