[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., NEB., CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 8



OKLAHOMA:

Time running out for Oklahoma's execution drugs


In just 2 months it will have been 2 years since the state of Oklahoma executed 
a condemned prisoner. FOX 25 has learned it may be nearly impossible for the 
state to resume lethal injections as it has done in the past.

Lethal injection drugs are in high demand, but short supply and some of 
Oklahoma's supply of death penalty drugs is about to expire.

"Midazolam may have a shelf life of 2 years or 3 years depending on the batch 
that is manufactured," said Dale Baich, a federal public defender who 
represents Oklahoma inmates challenging their executions.

"We're not aware of any state that has carried out executions that have used 
expired drugs," Baich said in reaction to a FOX 25 analysis that shows the 
clock ticking on the state's execution cocktail.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections will not tell us the expiration dates of 
the drugs they have purchased. However, according to the multi-county grand 
jury investigation into the state???s failure to correctly carry out 
executions, the state ordered midazolam in November of 2014, and re-ordered in 
January of 2015.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt has promised not to seek new execution dates 
until 5 months after the DOC creates and adopts new execution protocols.

This means if the state had purchased fresh off the line midazolam in January 
2015, the max t3 year shelf life would be up in January 2018. Applying that 
same condition to the November 2014 purchase would mean the drugs would expire 
in November 2017. However, corrections officials in Arkansas (a state with 
similar drug secrecy laws) told FOX 25 it last purchased midazolam shortly 
before Oklahoma's 1st purchase and its supply expires in April 2017.

According to the grand jury documents the state's last purchase of rocuronium 
bromide, the 2nd of the 3-drug cocktail, was last purchased in November 2014. 
This drug also has a 3 year shelf life, which means its shelf life is, at most, 
November of 2017.

Added to those soon-to-expire drugs is the issue surrounding the drug that led 
to the grand jury investigation, potassium acetate. This drug was used in the 
Charles Warner execution and nearly used in Richard Glossip's execution. The 
governor's general counsel told the Attorney General's office to "Google it" in 
an effort to continue with Glossip's execution even though potassium acetate 
was not an approved drug. Testimony before the grand jury revealed acetate was 
received because potassium chloride, the approved fatal drug, was unavailable.

Injectable potassium chloride, which the state's current lethal injection 
protocol calls for, is part of a nation-wide shortage, even for those seeking 
it for medical purposes.

"I think that when it comes to using this drug for executions, the drug should 
be used to help people rather than to kill people especially if there is a 
shortage," Baich argues.

The Corrections Department told FOX 25 it has not made any effort to secure 
potassium chloride since Glossip's last attempted execution.

To help alleviate some of the problems faced by drug purchases and mix-ups the 
legislature passed a new law to allow the DOC to store prescription drugs, 
including execution drugs on site at prisons. The DOC said the law was also 
changed in order to allow prisons easier access to medications needed to 
provide life-saving medications to inmates.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics told FOX 25 as of November 1, the DOC has had 
the option to file paperwork in order to get this permission. As of the 
publishing of this story that paperwork has not been filed.

The DOC told FOX 25 it has not started the preparing protocols for the state's 
legally prescribed backup execution method, nitrogen hypoxia. However, the 
agency confirmed they received an advertisement from a company promising pain 
free and mistake free executions using nitrogen gas.

The company, Pima Air Tech registered in Tucson, Arizona, told FOX 25 it sent a 
letter to the Oklahoma DOC advertising its "patent pending" death penalty 
alternative, the "Euthypoxia Chamber."

The letter says the company does not advocate for the death penalty, but does 
offer options for states that carry out capital punishment. The chamber 
promises to be "totally fool-proof and totally fail-safe." It also "Guaranties 
the demise of any mammalian life within 4 minutes."

(source: okcfox.com)






NEBRASKA:

Uncertainty looms over death penalty vote


Voters will have an opportunity Tuesday to reverse an action taken by the 
Legislature and reinstate Nebraska's death penalty, but moving forward with 
executions could take years.

Nebraska's last execution was in 1997, using the electric chair, and the state 
has never carried one out using its current three-drug lethal injection 
protocol. Even though several executions have been scheduled, legal and 
logistical problems have kept the state from using lethal injection before the 
necessary drugs expired.

Nebraska lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May 2015 over Republican Gov. 
Pete Ricketts' veto. Supporters of the punishment responded with a citizen-led 
petition drive partially financed by Ricketts that suspended the Legislature's 
decision until voters decide the issue Tuesday.

Voting "retain" will uphold the Legislature's decision and replace the death 
penalty with life in prison, while voting "repeal" will reinstate capital 
punishment.

Death penalty supporters say Nebraska can overcome the hurdles as other states 
have recently done. One example is Ohio, where officials announced last month 
they would resume executions in 2017 after changing their three-drug lethal 
injection protocol, said Chris Peterson, a spokesman for Nebraskans for the 
Death Penalty.

But Ohio, Texas and other states have moved forward only because they shrouded 
their processes in secrecy, passing laws that require officials to withhold the 
names of drug manufacturers, said Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln, a leading death 
penalty opponent. Nebraska lawmakers have traditionally avoided that approach, 
erring on the side of transparency.

"Nebraskans don't want their government hiding things from them," Coash said. 
"If pharmaceutical companies want to make drugs that kill people, they ought to 
stand behind that."

Without a secrecy law, Coash said he doubts Nebraska will ever carry out an 
execution. The death penalty opposition campaign, Retain a Just Nebraska, has 
argued that no inmate will be executed even if voters reinstate the punishment.

"It puts it back on the books, but it doesn't mean we get the drugs," Coash 
said. "It doesn't mean executions begin on Nov. 10."

Death penalty proponents say strong support by voters will increase pressure on 
public officials to find a workable execution method.

"The obstacles are not insurmountable," said Bob Evnen, a Lincoln attorney who 
has worked with Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. "Other states are able to 
carry out the death penalty. Our state can, too."

Evnen said it's impossible to know when they state might be able to carry out 
an execution, but he noted officials came close eight years ago when they were 
on the verge of scheduling executions for inmates Carey Dean Moore and Ray 
Mata. Their executions were delayed when the Nebraska Supreme Court declared 
the electric chair unconstitutional.

The state's corrections department spent $54,400 last year on foreign-made 
lethal injection drugs but has not received them because the U.S. Food and Drug 
Administration blocked the shipment. State officials agreed to buy the drugs 
from Chris Harris, a distributor in India who contacted the corrections 
department in April 2015 as lawmakers were debating whether to abolish the 
death penalty. Ricketts announced he was suspending the effort to obtain the 
drugs until voters decided whether to keep capital punishment.

Harris sold execution drugs to the state in 2010, but the drugs' manufacturer 
accused him of misrepresenting how he intended to use them. Legal challenges 
prevented the state from using the drugs before they expired.

Both sides of the issue made their final push before the election with radio 
and television ads and through social media. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty 
sent more than 250,000 mailings to voters urging them to keep the punishment, 
Peterson said.

"The other side has thrown everything including the kitchen sink to try to 
eliminate the death penalty, but we believe a strong majority of Nebraskans see 
a place for the death penalty in our criminal justice system," Peterson said.

Surrogates have played a major role. Vivian Tuttle of Ewing, whose daughter 
Evonne was murdered in a 2002 Norfolk bank robbery, has traveled the state 
extensively urging voters to overturn the Legislature's decision. So have the 
relatives of 57-year-old Shirlee Sherman, who was stabbed to death along with 
an 11-year-old boy in 2008. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty has also enlisted 
the support of local sheriffs who support the punishment.

Retain a Just Nebraska has turned to church leaders, particularly the Catholic 
Church, to present its arguments to voters. Ada Joann Taylor, who was 
exonerated in a 1985 murder after serving nearly 20 years in prison, also 
joined forces with death penalty opponents.

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

Hercules: Convicted murderer testifies as jury weighs death sentence


Darnell Washington has stayed silent for months during his trial and conviction 
in the brutal 2012 murder of retired Hercules kindergarten teacher and mother 
of four Susie Ko, who was beaten and stabbed with a knife and the barrel of a 
shotgun.

But that changed Monday, when Washington, 28, took the stand during the penalty 
phase of his trial. A jury is tasked with deciding whether Washington should be 
sentenced to death.

Washington testified about his childhood Monday, not about the home invasion 
robbery in which he was convicted of stabbing Ko to death, nor his escape weeks 
earlier from San Bernardino County Jail. That limited the questions prosecutor 
Molly Manoukian was able to ask Washington during cross-examination.

Still, Manoukian tried to elicit from Washington his feelings about Ko's 
murder, asking him point-blank whether his own grandmother had been stabbed to 
death repeatedly in the doorway of her home, in the same fashion as Ko.

Washington's attorney, Tim Ahearn, objected to that line of questioning, and 
Washington never had to respond.

Speaking rapidly in a soft tone, and keeping his focus on Ahearn, Washington 
testified about being bounced around from group home to group home in the 
California foster care system. He described himself as a "rebellious" child, 
saying he spent time in a juvenile detention facility before middle school.

Washington's parents were split, and he said he saw them sporadically. At one 
point during his childhood, after he misbehaved, his father took him to a group 
home, pushed him out of the car and sped off, he testified, saying the incident 
left him "broken-hearted."

"I was extremely sad - you're supposed to be my father," Washington said. "The 
sadness turned to anger, and the anger turned to hopelessness."

At another point, his mother kicked him out of the house, he said. During that 
time, he slept on park benches, school playgrounds, anywhere he felt safe. He 
continued to have disciplinary problems and eventually ended up in a youth 
authority detention facility, facing robbery and carjacking charges.

On his 18th birthday, he was transferred to Chino state prison, where inmates 
were "doing all types of things like stabbing people and killing people and 
things that weren't happening at (the youth authority facility)." He testified 
that he tried to make a life change, studying and staying trouble-free. He was 
eventually transferred to an inmate fire crew.

On the fire crew, Washington said he fought fires in Fresno, San Juan Bautista 
and other parts of California. He said he tried to be an "example" for other 
inmates.

During cross-examination, Manoukian brought up Washington's testimony that his 
mother wasn't around.

"But, it was as though she wasn't around because she was murdered?" Manoukian 
asked, prompting the judge to sustain a defense objection. Washington remained 
silent.

The penalty phase of Washington's trial comes as voters are set to decide 
Tuesday whether to abolish California's death penalty.

(source: eastbaytimes.com)

*********************

Death penalty victimizes innocent children


The death penalty victimizes the innocent children and family members of 
condemned men and women. These are citizens of this country who have committed 
no crime, and yet, because of capital punishment's ignominious existence, they 
are punished too. Their state-sanctioned suffering, one that Californians will 
be directly responsible for promoting if they vote for Proposition 66, is 
severe.

For the children, just think about it: they didn't do a damn thing wrong except 
be born. And then, on an especially dark, dreary, and evil day, they're being 
brought to prison to see their parent one last time. And they're in some 
sterile room, and everyone's watching; the warden, the prison chaplain, the 
press, a gaggle of attorneys and guards, all of them are watching to see how 
these children of the condemned are going to carry it.

Are they going to cry? How are they holding up knowing the human race has 
decided the person they love (and who gave them life) is so damn defective that 
they must be cast out into the unfathomable, the ungodly, the unknown? What can 
they be thinking, some of them just toddlers? What possible chance for a 
happy/normal life can they have after watching society exterminate their father 
or mother (or other caregiver) like a parasite, a cancer, a plague?

On its website, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner 
observes: "There are few studies available which describe the experience of 
children whose parents have been sentenced to death or who have had one or both 
parents executed. From the available information, however, it is clear that 
children who have lost parents because of lengthy prison sentences or 
executions suffer deep and lasting grief and trauma."

In remarks to a panel discussion on the human rights of children of parents 
sentenced to death or executed, Marta Santos Pais, the Special Representative 
of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, said: "The sentencing of 
a parent to the death penalty compromises the enjoyment of a wide spectrum of 
children's rights." Associate Professor Sandra Jones of Rowan University 
explained to the panel, "[t]hese children feel terribly alone [and] tend to 
isolate themselves and suffer from internali[z]ed shame. Often these children 
feel they have to defend the parent in prison, and they live in fear waiting to 
hear they have been killed. These children typically have to deal with many 
psychological issues - depression, anxiety, [behavioral] problems and 
aggression. Many of them go on to become offenders."

Of course, the children and family members of those who have been murdered are 
victims; that's so obvious, no one needs to study the phenomenon. But, when as 
a society we chose to descend to the killer's level by sanctioning the death 
penalty, we must acknowledge all of the dirty, nasty consequences, many of 
which can hardly be described (or swept under the rug) as "collateral." Ms. 
Pais warned the assembled experts at the United Nations: "It is critical that 
the situation of children of parents facing the death penalty get the urgent 
attention and action required."

In California, on November 8, just like the citizens of Nebraska and Oklahoma, 
we have an opportunity to forever put an end to the uncivilized, gruesome, 
state-sponsored spectacle of innocent children having to watch a parent be 
executed: Vote "No" on Proposition 66 and "Yes" on Proposition 62.

(source: Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an 
assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015----Los 
Angeles Post Examiner)






OREGON:

Retired Ore. prison boss who executed 2 now opposes death penalty


Fade in to the Oregon State Penitentiary, past the concertina wire fence and 
the sliding doors and locks. The state's most dangerous felons are incarcerated 
here, including all but 2 of the 34 inmates on death row.

In an office, away from the segregated cells, sits the superintendent, Frank 
Thompson. In front of him is a bucket of water, and he has a syringe in hand. 
With him is a man advising him how to properly administer a lethal injection.

Thompson draws water into the syringe, then depresses the plunger as the 
syringe empties into the bucket. He does this over and over, while the adviser 
warns about the importance of the depression rate. The fluid, he is told, 
should not flow out faster than gravity.

Dissolve to a downtown coffee shop, a mile and a half from the prison and 
bustling with conversation about life in Salem. Thompson describes to me the 
scene from 20 years ago.

"I'm practicing delivering a lethal injection," he says, almost as if he 
doesn't believe it really happened. "Surreal doesn't begin to explain it."

My gaze is diverted to his right hand, resting on the table between us. Without 
realizing it, he's going through the motion as if he is depressing that 
syringe.

Thompson plays a lead role in the history of capital punishment in Oregon, as 
the man who oversaw the state's last execution. He conducted 2, in fact, while 
he was superintendent at Oregon State Penitentiary. Those are the state's only 
executions in the past 54 years.

His story is compelling. He supported capital punishment during most of his 
30-year career in law enforcement and corrections, but today he is one of its 
most outspoken critics.

Our conversation and his appearance at a meeting of Oregonians for Alternatives 
to the Death Penalty are sandwiched between an opinion piece published in the 
New York Times and a trip to Oklahoma, 1 of 3 states with capital punishment 
initiatives on the ballot this week.

"The death penalty doesn't deter," he tells me. "It only satisfies vengeance."

Thompson, whose mother and father were educators, grew up in the segregated 
south, in Arkansas. He worked in law enforcement, and both his best friend and 
his cousin were killed on the job. The man who murdered his cousin ultimately 
was executed for another crime.

"Deep down, I remember feeling justice had been served," Thompson says. "But 
emotion does not make good policy."

When he applied for the top prison job in Oregon in 1994, he told an 
interviewer that he would be capable of executing an inmate, something which 
hadn't happened in more than three decades at the time.

"It was part of the criminal justice system," Thompson says, "but I thought I 
wouldn't have to."

Within 18 months of landing the job, two death row inmates waived their appeals 
and were scheduled to be executed by lethal injection, one for killing his 
half-sister and her former husband, and another for killing 3 homeless men and 
a 10-year-old boy.

There was no protocol in Oregon for execution by lethal injection. Oregon 
previously used a gas chamber, the last time in 1962.

This would be the 1st execution in 34 years, the 1st by lethal injection, and 
the 1st for Thompson and everyone on his staff.

"No one can imagine the amount of pressure with all these firsts," Thompson 
said. "I felt like the world was watching."

The glare of the spotlight was one of the reasons he focused on training his 
staff, which came naturally for him.

Thompson is an Army veteran. He served in the military police during the 
Vietnam War era, and was stationed in Korea. Preparing to administer the death 
penalty, to him, was a lot like preparing for combat.

"You're hoping you never have to kill anybody, but you do what you're called 
upon to do," he says.

Like a good soldier and commander, Thompson was as concerned for those serving 
with him as he was for himself. Each of the employees who participated in the 
1st execution, in 1996, volunteered for duty. He met 1-on-1 with each person 
and selected those who would carry out the execution orders.

Thompson was aware of the heavy toll it could take on them. While a police 
officer and corrections officer in Arkansas, he had friends who were involved 
in executions in that state. Some of them suffered from post-traumatic stress 
disorder.

To help insulate his staff from the fears of doing the job, and from making a 
mistake, training was a top priority for Thompson. They trained for every step 
of the process, and for every possible scenario, and they did it over and over 
again.

In hindsight, it might have been excessive. But not to Thompson, who says he 
spent $80,000 on overtime to prepare staff for the 1st one.

"My biggest fear was to have a botched execution," he says. "We don't need any 
other victims."

Fade back to Oregon State Penitentiary, where Thompson is sitting across from 
one of the condemned men, describing in detail how the death sentence will be 
carried out.

Thompson explains how the condemned man will be placed in restraints on a 
gurney and connected to a heart monitor machine. He explains how he will be 
hooked up to intravenous catheters for lethal injection of solutions that will 
first induce unconsciousness, then stop breathing and finally stop the heart.

The irony of premeditation is not lost on Thompson.

Back at the coffee shop, Thompson reflects on what was another surreal moment 
in the evolution of his stance on capital punishment.

"I'm sitting as close as I am to you," Thompson says to me, "and I'm explaining 
to this man how I'm going to kill him."

It was around this time, in the middle of intense training, that Thompson's 
stance on capital punishment began to sway.

"Everybody knew it," he says. "You register your concerns, but you don't bail 
out."

He was lucky to have a caring and understanding support system to go home to, 
and still is and does. He and his wife, Deborah, have been married since 1970. 
They have a daughter and a granddaughter.

Deborah accompanied him to the recent meeting of Oregonians for Alternatives to 
the Death Penalty, during which he talked about the impact executions can have 
on corrections officers. Someone later asked if he had experienced PTSD.

"I've had no professional counseling or treatment. You might ask my wife."

She says he has.

"I believe having an opportunity to do what I'm doing tonight is my therapy," 
Thompson goes on to say. "I see it somewhat as a ministry."

Public support for the death penalty fell by 7 % points in the last year, with 
fewer than h1/2of Americans (49 %) now saying they support it, according to a 
national Pew Research Center poll released Sept. 29. It marked the 1st time in 
45 years that support for capital punishment polled below 50 %.

Thompson shares his story any chance he gets with legislators, criminal justice 
advocates and community leaders across Oregon - where the death penalty is 
legal but currently under moratorium - and across the country. He has met with 
elected officials in Colorado and Maryland, and his recent appearances in 
Oklahoma were arranged by a senator.

He reels off a list of reasons why he and others believe the death penalty 
should be abolished, including how it is not an effective deterrent to murder, 
how it is applied disproportionately against the poor and minorities, and how 
it diverts resources from effective criminal justice policy.

Thompson stood next to the gurney during one of the executions - he won't say 
which one - watching the man take his last breath. For the other, he stood 
outside the room and watched for the flat line on the heart monitor.

Although he used the names of the executed in his New York Times piece, he 
prefers not to in this column.

"There are victims out there," he says.

Thompson said the team stayed intact for both executions, after which a couple 
of staffers quietly went on to other professions because of how much they were 
bothered by the experience. He often gets asked why he didn't quit after the 
1st one, if he had changed his stance.

"Executing people was 1/1000 of what we did," he said, noting his role in 
helping develop the Performance Recognition and Award System (PRAS) that 
reinforces pro-social program development and positive behavior in Oregon 
prisons.

"I'm proud of that," Thompson says, "but that's not going to be on my 
headstone."

Fade in to the execution room at Oregon State Penitentiary, with a condemned 
man strapped to the gurney, awaiting the injection of a cocktail of lethal 
chemicals. The person who will perform the injection has been trained by 
Thompson, based on a lesson with a syringe and a water bucket.

The staff inside the room has been trained to conduct the execution 
professionally and with as much dignity as humanly possible. Before the 
injection is administered, the man lets them know the straps binding his hands 
are hurting him.

Thompson gives instructions to loosen them, and after the adjustments are made, 
the man looks his executioner in the eye and says, "Thank you, boss."

(source: KGW news)






USA:

Women death row to execution: see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxG4xo97jWU

*****************

Will voters send death penalty to the gallows?


Voters in 3 states Tuesday will decide the fate of ballot measures on the use 
of the death penalty.

In California, which has 741 people on death row, more than any other state, 
competing propositions will be on the ballot. Proposition 62 would abolish the 
death penalty and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of 
parole. Proposition 66 would speed up the process of executions.

In Nebraska, a referendum proposes to reinstate the death penalty, which the 
state legislature abolished in 2015. A petition was filed with 167,000 
signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

And in Oklahoma, the state with the country's highest per capita execution 
rate, a ballot measure would amend the state constitution to prevent the death 
penalty from being declared cruel and unusual punishment.

19 states have repealed the death penalty, and polling suggests that at least a 
couple of these measures will pass. In California, 1 poll found 48 % of 
respondents favor replacing the death penalty with life in prison, with 42 % 
opposed.

According to Gallup, support for the death penalty has declined nationally, 
from a high of 80 % in 1996 to 60 % in 2013. Opposition has more than doubled 
over the same period, from 16% in 1996 to 35 % in 2013. And in September, a Pew 
Research report found that support for the death penalty neared a 50-year low 
of 49 %.

The death penalty is also being utilized less often by states. Only 28 
prisoners were executed nationally last year, the lowest number in more than 
two decades. The number of people sentenced to death is also down from previous 
years. There are several reasons for this, including high-profile cases in 
which people sentenced to die suffered long, agonizing deaths after botched 
lethal injections. There have also been questions over the costs of the death 
penalty and whether it reduces crime.

Capital trials are very expensive and the slow pace of the appeals process 
usually means death row inmates cost taxpayers more than those in the general 
prison population. By 1 estimate, Prop 62 may save Californians $150 million 
annually starting in a few years.

Most importantly, more death row inmates are being exonerated following 
wrongful convictions. Last year there were 149 exonerations, a new record. And 
according to the Death Penalty Information Center, 156 people have been 
exonerated after being sentenced to death since 1971.

Increasingly, people are viewing the death penalty as a potentially grave 
injustice, and they are changing their views accordingly.

(source: Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner)

*****************

Judge: Mom's alcohol use won't halt man's death penalty case


A federal judge in Vermont says a man can face a second death penalty trial 
even though his mother's alcohol use caused him developmental delays.

In a ruling issued Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford refused 
to exempt Donald Fell because he has suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum 
disorder.

Attorneys for the former Rutland man had argued Fell shouldn't face possible 
execution. They say fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is the equivalent of 
intellectual disabilities that are recognized death penalty exemptions.

Crawford says the condition is not well enough understood to exempt a sufferer 
from the death penalty.

The 36-year-old Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death for the 2000 
killing of Rutland supermarket worker Terry King. His conviction was thrown out 
due to juror misconduct.

A retrial is scheduled for next year.

(source: Associated Press)

******************

Jury Selection Postponed In Trial Of Church Shooting Suspect Dylann Roof


Jury selection in the federal trial of Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old suspected 
of murdering 9 people last year at the oldest black church in Charleston, S.C., 
was postponed Monday morning by the presiding judge.

In a public statement, Judge Richard Gergel did not say when jury selection 
proceedings would resume.

The judge wrote:

"I have received a motion in this case this morning requiring my immediate 
attention and the conducting of a hearing involving only the Defendant and 
defense counsel. The hearing with be closed to the Government and the public."

"The government" refers to the prosecution in the case. Roof has pleaded not 
guilty to 33 federal hate crimes counts; he is accused of entering the 
historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown 
Charleston and sitting among worshipers at a Wednesday Bible study before 
opening fire. The church's senior pastor was among those who died.

The Justice Department is seeking the death penalty. Roof also faces the death 
penalty on state murder charges.

The judge did not elaborate on the nature of Monday's last-minute hearing, 
saying only that, "The closing of the hearing in necessary to protect the 
attorney client privilege and the Defendant's right to a fair and impartial 
jury and a fair trial."

(source: npr.org)