Church shooter gets death sentence
Roof remained detached during the penalty phase
Dylann Roof, the impenitent and inscrutable white supremacist who killed nine black churchgoers in a brazenly racial assault almost 19 months ago, is condemned to death by a federal jury.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dylann Roof, the impenitent and inscrutable white supremacist who killed nine African-American churchgoers in a brazenly racial assault almost 19 months ago, shocking the world over the persistence of extremist hatred in dark corners of the American South, was condemned to death by a federal jury on Tuesday.
The jury of nine whites and three blacks, who last month found Roof guilty of 33 counts for the attack at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, returned their unanimous verdict after about three hours of deliberations in the penalty phase of a heart-rending and often legally confounding trial.
The guilt of Roof, who coolly confessed to the killings and then justified them without remorse in a jailhouse manifesto, was never in serious doubt during the first phase of the proceedings in U.S. District Court in December.
By the time the jurors began their deliberations on his sentence, it seemed inevitable that they would lean toward death, not only because of the heinous nature of the crimes, but because Roof, 22, insisted on denying any psychological incapacity, called no witnesses, presented no evidence in his defense and mostly sidelined his courtappointed lawyers.
His family, which has been mostly silent since his arrest, said in a statement Tuesday that they would “struggle as long as we live to understand why he committed this horrible attack, which caused so much pain to so many good people.”
The decision effectively capped Roof ’s first trial for the killings on June 17, 2015, the Wednesday when, after six scouting visits to Charleston, he showed up in Emanuel’s fellowship hall and was offered a seat for Bible study by the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney. Then, with the parishioners’ eyes clenched for a benediction, Roof brandished the .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun he had smuggled into the church and opened fire.
Susie Jackson, an 87-year-old grandmother, was struck at least 10 times.
In addition to Jackson and Pinckney, six other people were killed: Tywanza Sanders, Cynthia Hurd, Ethel Lee Lance, the Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor, the Rev. Daniel L. Simmons Sr., the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton and Myra Thompson.
The jury found Roof guilty in December of hate crimes resulting in death, obstruction of religion and use of a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence. Eighteen of the 33 counts carried a potential death sentence.