Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Roof found guilty in S.C. church massacre
Jurors to weigh death penalty next month at sentencing phase
CHARLESTON, S.C. — After nearly a week of painful testimony that recreated the massacre at this city’s famed “Mother Emanuel” church, it took jurors about two hours Thursday to convict Dylann Roof in his federal hate crimes trial.
Roof, 22, was charged with 33 counts in his federal indictment. He was found guilty on every single one. As the verdict was read, Roof stared ahead, much as he did the entire trial.
Family members of the nine parishioners gunned down last year nodded silently as each charge was read. Some held hands, their eyes shut, as each guilty verdict was announced in the courtroom just a mile from the church.
With Roof’s guilt effectively unquestioned, the verdict was seen as likely and the trial largely hinged on what happens next.
Mirroring what happened during the Boston Marathon bombing trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev last year — the last case that saw the Justice Department obtain a federal death sentence — there was no real question about guilt. Prosecutors played video of Roof admitting his guilt to FBI agents, and Roof ’s attorneys did not argue that he was innocent.
Instead, the larger question surrounding the trial has focused on whether Roof is sentenced to death or life in prison.
After a break for the holidays, jurors will reconvene Jan. 3 to hear more testimony and decide Roof’s fate. Roof said Thursday that he intends to represent himself during the penalty portion.
Earlier, federal prosecutors had used their emotional closing arguments to paint a picture of Roof as cruel and calculated.
In Roof’s confession to the FBI, the gunman said he carried out the killings after researching “black on white crime” on the internet. He said he chose a church because that setting posed little danger to him.
Prosecutors read lines from a journal found in his car and the manifesto he posted online, and they told jurors that Roof wanted to incite a race war.
After being welcomed into Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church’s Bible study June 17, 2015, Roof sat among the parishioners and then “executed them because he believes they are nothing but animals,” Nathan Williams, an assistant U.S. attorney, told jurors.
While Williams spoke, a photograph of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney was shown on the screen. The pastor, who had offered Roof a seat next to him, was wearing a crisp white shirt and new suit in the image. Both were stained by blood pooling around Pinckney, who had been shot five times in the neck, back and arm.
Roof’s grandmother, sitting in the courtroom, wiped away a tear.
Also killed were Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45, a high school track coach; Cynthia Hurd, 54, a librarian; Susie Jackson, 87, who sang in the choir; Ethel Lance, 70, the church sexton who kept the building immaculately clean; Depayne Middleton-Doctor, 49, who friends said sang like an angel; Tywanza Sanders, 26, Jackson’s nephew and an aspiring poet; Daniel “Dapper Dan” Simmons, 74, nicknamed for his shiny shoes and fine hats; and Myra Thompson, 59, who taught Bible study that night. Three others survived. Roof’s attorney, David Bruck, said Roof’s actions were senseless, but he described them as the actions of someone unable to perceive the world as it is.
“Why did Roof do this? Why was he motivated?” Bruck said, calling on the jury to try its best to consider who Roof is and what led him to commit such a violent act. He called Roof an immature man who gave himself over to the “mad idea that he can make things better by executing those kind, virtuous people.”
For Bruck, a widely recognized death penalty lawyer, his closing arguments Thursday represented perhaps his last chance to address the jurors.
U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel agreed to let Roof represent himself during the sentencing phase, though Bruck and other attorneys will remain as standby counsel.