[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., ALA., MO., N.MEX., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 26



NORTH CAROLINA:

Jury starts deliberations in Winston-Salem home-invasion killing; defendant 
could face death penalty


In closing arguments this morning, Forsyth County prosecutors painted Anthony 
Vinh Nguyen, on trial for the murder of an Ardmore woman in 2013, as a cool and 
calculating killer. But Nguyen's attorneys painted a different picture - that 
the evidence points to one of Nguyen's co-defendants as the one who actually 
pulled the trigger.

Nguyen, 24, has been on trial for 1st-degree murder, 1st-degree kidnapping, 
1st-degree burglary and armed robbery in the death of Shelia Pace Gooden. 
Forsyth County prosecutors allege that Nguyen and 2 other men - Daniel Aaron 
Benson, 25, and Steven George Assimos, 24 - broke into Gooden's house at 700 
Magnolia St. at 11:30 p.m. Oct. 10, 2013, held Gooden hostage and stole a 
flat-screen TV. They say Nguyen shot Gooden 3 times - once in the right leg and 
twice in the head.

After closing arguments, the jury was given instructions and started its 
deliberations. If convicted of 1st-degree murder, Nguyen could face the death 
penalty.

Assistant District Attorney Ben White said in closing arguments that Nguyen 
gave all three men clothing to disguise themselves and rubber gloves, drove the 
men to Gooden's house and knocked on Gooden's door. All of this was done in a 
cool and calm manner, he said.

Nguyen shot Gooden in the leg and then later, while she was kneeling on the 
ground and crying, Nguyen shot her again, this time twice in the head, White 
said. Nguyen didn't want to leave any witnesses, he told the jury.

"There is no calmer or cooler killer than the defendant," White said.

John Bryson, one of Nguyen's attorneys, said Nguyen is not the killer here. 
Benson pulled the trigger, he said.

Bryson pointed out that most of the gunshot residue investigators found was on 
the shoes Benson was wearing on Oct. 10, 2013. The gray hoodie that Nguyen wore 
had no gunshot residue, he said.

And Benson's testimony is not consistent with the physical evidence in the 
case, Bryson said. Benson testified that Nguyen shot Gooden in the head while 
in the living room, even though Gooden's body was found in the back hallway, 
Bryson said. Benson testified that he and Assimos were in the living room when 
Gooden was shot in the head.

According to testimony, a bullet was found underneath her head in the back 
hallway. Bryson said that indicates that she was shot in the back hallway and 
not in the living room. Assimos gave a different story than Benson's, he said.

Assimos testified that Benson was already outside when Gooden was shot and that 
Nguyen had moved Gooden from the living room to the back hallway. Assimos said 
he was outside when he heard 2 gunshots. Then Nguyen came out and said he had 
messed up and might have shot Gooden, Assimos testified.

Benson also had motive for the robbery and eventual murder, Bryson said. There 
had been a longstanding feud between Gooden's son, Cory Joe Prince, and Benson 
because Benson believed Prince had sex with Benson's then-girlfriend. At a 
party in September 2013, Benson and Prince got into an altercation during which 
Prince swung a machete, Bryson said.

Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Martin said Assimos and Benson didn't give 
identical testimony but they were consistent that Nguyen was the one who drove 
them to the house and Nguyen was the one who provided dark clothing for 
disguise and rubber gloves.

Martin also criticized Nguyen's testimony that he dropped off Assimos and 
Benson at the house and went to a nearby store to get cigarettes during the 
time when Gooden was killed. She said it was convenient that Nguyen was with 
Assimos and Benson all day on Oct. 10, 2013, except for the 10 minutes during 
which Gooden was shot to death.

"This is not a conspiracy or a plot against the defendant," she said.

(source: Winston-Salem Journal)






GEORGIA:

Trial to begin for man accused of robbing, killing Vernon Forrest


The trial of a man facing the death penalty for allegedly robbing and killing a 
champion boxer in Atlanta in July 2009 is set to begin Monday in Fulton County.

Charmon Sinkfield faces 2 counts of murder, 6 counts of felony murder, armed 
robbery and other related charges in connection with the death of Vernon 
Forrest.

On July 25, 2009, Forrest was robbed at gunpoint by Demario Ware at a Southwest 
Atlanta gas station as the boxer put air in his tire. Ware stole Forrest's 
championship ring and Rolex watch. Forrest chased Ware, but lost him near an 
apartment complex on McDaniel Street. Forrest then encountered the Charmon 
Sinkfield. As Forrest turned away, Sinkfield shot him 7 times, including 5 
times in the back.

Ware was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Jury selection is set to begin Monday. If convicted, Sinkfield could receive 
the death penalty.

Forrest, a former world boxing champion, competed between 1992 and 2008. He won 
the International Boxing Federation's welterweight title in 2001; held the 
unified welterweight titles from 2002-2003; and the WBC super welterweight 
title twice, from 2007 to 2009, according to his Wikipedia profile.

(source: Fox news)






ALABAMA:

Death row inmate wants chance to argue for firing squad


An Alabama death row inmate says the courts should allow him to argue that 
getting shot would be a less painful way to die than enduring the state's 
current execution protocol.

In a filing with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Friday, attorneys for Thomas 
Arthur, convicted in 1982 in a murder-for-hire scheme, say the sedative used in 
Alabama's lethal injection procedure could possibly trigger a heart attack 
before the administration of the lethal drugs in the procedure. Arthur's 
attorneys said in the filing a district court improperly denied him the ability 
to argue for alternative methods of execution - such as a firing squad, a 
different sedative or changes to the current protocol.

"Absent this court's intervention, Mr. Arthur will soon be executed with having 
been afforded the chance to prove that Alabama's method of execution is highly 
likely to subject him to agonizing pain," the filing stated.

The Alabama Supreme Court earlier this month set a Nov. 3 execution date for 
Arthur. Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the Alabama attorney general's office, said 
they had no comment. Bob Horton, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of 
Corrections, said in a statement the department "is prepared to carry out the 
execution as ordered by the Alabama Supreme Court."

The filing, the latest in a years-long challenge brought by Arthur against the 
state's death penalty, follows a July ruling that dismissed his challenge. 
Arthur's attorneys want the circuit to send the case back to Alabama for 
further consideration.

Arthur first filed suit over the state's methods of execution in 2011. The 
inmate argued that the sedative in the procedure - 1st pentobarbital, then 
sodium midazolam - would not render him unconscious in time to avoid the pain 
associated with rorcuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles, or potassium 
chloride, which stops the heart. Arthur's attorneys said that violated his 
Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Attorneys for Arthur also said Alabama Departments of Corrections officials did 
not regularly apply a consciousness test to inmates before administering the 
last 2 drugs in the execution protocol, a violation of his 14th Amendment due 
process rights.

Arthur won several stays of execution while his challenge and others to the 
constitutionality of the sedatives used in the procedure went forward. In 2015, 
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Glossip v. Gross, a challenge to Oklahoma's use 
of midazolam, that those challenging the constitutionality of an execution 
method had to propose one that would be less painful.

The inmate tried to argue that the state should use pentobarnital instead of 
midazolam at a trial in January, but lost that case as well as later motions to 
change the protocol due to Arthur suffering cardiovascular disease. Writing in 
July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith Watkins wrote that Arthur had no had a health 
evaluation since 2009 and had not made "good faith" efforts to square his 
medical condition with the way the state proposes to execute him.

"Intense prodding by the court saw Arthur essentially standing mute as to the 
existence of a specific remedy, i.e., a proposed alternative method of 
execution, for an alleged unconstitutional risk," he wrote.

Arthur's attorneys say that due to their client's health issues, the use of 
midazolam could give him a heart attack before staff administers the fatal 
drugs. They also argue that the trial court should not have prevented him from 
arguing for execution by firing squad, citing Utah's use of the procedure in 
2010.

"Over the past century, a firing squad execution has never resulted in a 
botched execution (i.e., resulting in an agonizing death for the inmate), in 
contrast to more than 7 % of lethal injection executions," the briefing said.

The state argued that execution by firing squad was not a method available in 
the state.

Arthur also argues the use of pentobarbital, or modifications to the midazolam 
protocol, may do a better job rendering him unconscious. Arthur originally 
challenged pentobarbital's use - the state had run out of the sedative by 2014, 
which led to the switch to midazolam - but his attorneys wrote that was about 
the use of pentobarbital in the old protocol, and that the "gradual 
administration" of the drug would not reflect Arthur's initial complaint. The 
appeal also suggests the lower court applied the Eighth Amendment -- not the 
Fourteenth -- in dismissing Arthur's concerns over the consciousness test

The inmate's attorneys argue the court accepted "perfunctory" arguments from 
DOC personnel that they could not obtain pentobarbital, and prevented his 
defense from discovery that might have added more information about DOC's 
efforts in that regard.

"Mr. Arthur is thus . . . required on the one hand to prove the availability of 
an alternative execution method to ADOC, but prevented, on the other, from 
developing the factual record to meet that burden," they wrote.

The state executed Christopher Brooks in January for the 1992 rape, murder and 
robbery of Jo Deann Campbell. Witnesses said Brooks showed no visible signs of 
distress during his execution. The state planned to execute Vernon Madison in 
May for the 1985 murder of Mobile police officer Julius Schulte, but the 11th 
Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the execution due to questions about the effect 
a series of strokes had on Madison's state of mind.

(source: Montgomery Advertiser)

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

Saraya Atkins sentencing: Brutal murder followed troubled childhood, lawyers 
say


Defense attorneys for Saraya Atkins, who was found guilty of capital murder in 
the robbery and shooting of Robert Perry in 2014, sought to prove to jurors 
that Atkins rough upbringing and neglect from her parents led to her poor 
decision making.

The penalty phase of the trial began in the courtroom of Judge Michael 
Youngpeter Monday morning.

Mobile District Attorney Ashley Rich and Defense Attorney James Vollmer had 
brief opening statements to the jury before testimony began. Vollmer had his 
assistant attorney, Greg Hughes, plead to jurors that Atkins is not the worst 
of the worst and does not deserve the death penalty.

He told jurors before testimony began, "She was a loving and caring person, she 
still has potential and there is still value in that girl's life."

Police say Atkins and another woman, Kymberli Lindsay, 27 robbed and then 
killed Robert Perry, 66.

Atkins sat quietly as most of her family members waited in the hallway during 
testimony, while Perry's family members sat quietly in the front row.

Rich opened testimony with Perry's stepdaughter, Stephanie Finney, 45, 
explaining her relationship with Perry to jurors, which began when he married 
her mother when she was 18.

"He was everything to me, said Finney. "My daddy turned his back on me and he 
took up that role when another person shouldn't have too."

She told jurors he assisted her in raising her own son after his father left. 
She described him as a outgoing, positive and forward pushing person who saw 
the good in everyone.

When Rich asked her about her last memory of Perry, she burst into tears.

"Not one day or night I don't see him drowning on his own blood," said Finney. 
"I will never get over that day."

The testimony of Perry being outgoing and very family oriented continued as his 
daughter Angela Perry and his wife Barbara Ann Flores-Perry's statements.

Angela told jurors how he would spend three to six months at her home in 
Washington state each year to help with her children. He said he spent time 
taking his grandchildren to Vancouver Island, which was one of his favorite 
places.

Perry's wife, Barbara Ann, said he had 13 brothers and sisters, 8 children and 
18 grandchildren. Throughout their 25 year relationship and marriage, she 
described him as a hard worker, while photos of him with his grandchildren were 
shown to her on the stand.

"He worked since he was 14 helping his mother take care of his sisters and 
brothers and that carried on to his children and grandchildren," said 
Flores-Perry. "He was my soulmate. "

The defense set out to detail Atkins life growing up with her mother, Shawnette 
Spicer, when she gave her emotional hour long testimony.

She testified to jurors that she became pregnant with Atkins at 18 and she was 
her oldest child. Once her family found out about the pregnancy, she was 
quickly disowned by her family in Michigan and moved around with Atkins. She 
told jurors Atkins biological father was in and out of prison all of her life.

Vollmer put photos of Atkins on the monitors in the courtroom showing her as a 
10 pound baby a few days after Spicer had given birth. Spicer burst into tears.

"She was so big and so sweet," said Spicer. "I can't understand it."

After moving from Michigan to Georgia to stay with a relative she said things 
got bad with Atkins behavior even as a infant.

"Kicked out of 5 daycares. I couldn't understand it," said Spicer.

She moved back to Michigan and became homeless living wherever she could with 
Atkins. She finally found a job, enrolled in college and started a new 
relationship with an abusive man. That relationship ended after she was 
physically abused and raped by the man and he was sent to prison. Spicer said 
once he was gone, she often had to leave Atkins at home alone at 5-years-old to 
go to night classes.

"I didn't know what I was thinking. I didn't have anybody to leave her with so 
I left a tray of food and her favorite TV show on while she slept," said 
Spicer.

She said one night she returned home from a 2 hour class and Atkins was 
screaming in the window of the apartment.

"I screamed at her and fussed and whipped her," said Spicer. "I never once said 
I was sorry for doing that to her."

She cried loudly throughout her testimony looking at Atkins, seemingly as if 
she was testifying to her. Spicer said she got married to her current husband 
when Atkins was 4-years-old. While she testified that he was always loving and 
caring toward Atkins, she always seemed to hate him.

"Saraya was so difficult," said Spicer.

She testified about having Atkins taken to jail at 4-years-old for stealing and 
having multiple counseling sessions.

"She was peeing on the floor and I would whoop her," said Spicer. "I didn't 
understand. I thought she may have been retarded."

She continued saying that she would whip Atkins whenever she did things wrong. 
By the age of 9, Atkins was sent to stay in Chicago with Spicer's sister. A few 
months later she was brought back to Michigan to live with Spicer.

During that stint, at the age of 10 she lived with Spicer's mother until she 
was arrested for stealing her grandmother's credit cards. A few months later, 
Atkins stole her mother's car and was arrested for joyriding.

"I would call the police for her in an attempt to scare her straight, said 
Spicer. "It seems to me I jacked it up."

While Atkins continued to make decent grades in school, Spicer said she also 
became more defiant and would not follow rules.

At 16, Atkins moved in with a friend and her parents.

"I presented her with the same ultimatum my father had given me when I became 
pregnant with Saraya: Abide by my rules or get out."

Atkins finished high school and came to Mobile with her high school sweetheart 
to attend Bishop State College. After their relationship went bad, Atkins moved 
out on her own.

After losing a few jobs and dropping out of school, Atkins found herself 
calling her mother for monetary help before the robbery and shooting of Perry. 
Atkins claimed that she had been robbed.

In a huge burst of tears Spicer told jurors, "I said, 'Saraya, what's wrong?'

'She said I got robbed,'" said Spicer. "I told her I didn't have the money 
until the weekend."

The following morning she got a call about the shooting of Perry. When defense 
attorney Vollmer asked her how the death sentence would impact her she said it 
would kill her.

Spicer who told jurors she now holds multiple degrees and has found financial 
security and that it's her fault Atkins followed the wrong path.

"I have it all because I didn't take care of her," said Spicer. "I'm the one 
that's guilty."

(source: al.com)






MISSOURI:

Death-Penalty Drugmaker Shouldn't Be Anonymous


In a case that evokes a modern-day hangman's mask, a pharmacy that provides 
lethal drugs for carrying out the death penalty is arguing that it has a 
constitutional right to anonymity. The argument should fail, because there's no 
right to confidentiality in providing government services. But it shows just 
how dangerously far the idea of corporate constitutional rights has gone in the 
era of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.

The strange situation, as reported by BuzzFeed News, arose out of a lawsuit by 
death row inmates in Mississippi who are arguing that the particular 
combination of drugs used by their state as its method of execution is cruel 
and unusual. In the course of the suit, the Mississippi inmates subpoenaed the 
Missouri Department of Corrections to find out, among other things, what drugs 
the state uses in its execution cocktail and who provides them. In response, 
Missouri argued that it had a sovereign right to keep confidential the identity 
of its supplier.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit is considering whether to quash 
the subpoena. It has allowed Missouri's supplying pharmacy, identified in court 
papers only as M7, to file its own argument with the court.

Quicktake Lethal Injections

M7, which has sold more than $125,000 worth of lethal chemicals to Missouri, 
said its identity shouldn't be disclosed, because it has a First Amendment 
free-speech right to act in support of the death penalty on the basis of its 
political views.

The broader context here is that abolitionist opponents of the death penalty 
have been shaming the corporations that provide drugs intended to kill people 
at execution. The technique has been surprisingly effective, with some 20 major 
pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, saying their products must not be 
used in executions. As a result, a number of states have had difficulty getting 
anyone to sell them the drugs they need to execute by lethal injection. A 
recent Council of State Governments newsletter spoke of a "lethal injection 
drug shortage."

Anonymity, of course, is a way to avoid shaming. But M7's constitutional 
argument is deeply flawed. (I almost wrote "fatally flawed" -- but the 
ubiquitous legal metaphor is a little too close to home in this case.)

The core of M7's argument is that the First Amendment includes a right to speak 
anonymously. Under certain circumstances, that's true. In the landmark 1958 
case of NAACP v. Alabama, for example, the Supreme Court held that the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People couldn't be obligated to 
disclose the identity of its membership. In the background was the concern that 
the members could be subject to harassment for exercising their First Amendment 
right to speak and associate.

But there's an enormous difference between speaking and acting -- particularly 
when that action is a for-profit commercial transaction with the government. A 
government contractor like Halliburton, for example, might be subject to public 
criticism for a contract like the cost-plus arrangement the company had with 
the Defense Department during and after the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The 
potential for public criticism wouldn't justify a claim by Halliburton to keep 
its provision of services secret.

To the contrary, in a democracy, it's crucially important for the government to 
disclose its vendors, both to avoid corruption1 and to promote transparency.

More fundamentally, M7 isn't speaking at all: It's performing the act of 
selling drugs. This behavior can be subject to ordinary regulation, including 
public disclosure if ordered by a court. The company shouldn't be able to 
protect its actions from regulation simply by insisting that it is performing 
them out of political belief. If that were plausible, businesses could escape 
all sorts of government regulation by saying that they really, really believe 
in their corporate mission.

But despite the flimsiness of its legal arguments, there's a reason M7 is 
trying to get away with its free-speech argument: the trend in recent years 
toward constitutionalizing corporate interests. The Citizens United decision in 
which the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote held that the First Amendment applied to 
corporate speech, is the most prominent example.

At least in Citizens United, the corporation was actually speaking. In Burwell 
v. Hobby Lobby, the justices, again split 5-4, applied the Religious Freedom 
Restoration Act to a corporation's funding of its employees' health care. True, 
that case technically involved federal law, not the First Amendment. But the 
subtle difference is easily lost. In essence, the court held that a corporation 
has a legal right to the liberty of conscience in its business dealings.

A similar impulse lies behind claims by florists or wedding cake bakers who 
want to be exempt from antidiscrimination laws that might require them to serve 
gay couples. They are saying that they should be protected by religious liberty 
so that they may discriminate invidiously while engaged in commercial 
transactions.

The M7 situation helps demonstrate why it's so dangerous to treat corporations 
as though they have fundamental constitutional rights while doing business. 
Those basic rights are designed to protect individuals against government 
power. They aren't supposed to be used to exempt businesses from regulation or 
publicity whenever it's convenient for them.

1.----In this case, there's actually the possibility of something fishy: 
Missouri has been paying M7 $7,188.88 for 2 vials of pentobarbital for each 
execution, a price that is allegedly above market value.

(source: Bloomberg news)






NEW MEXICO:

Death penalty fight steals focus from NM budget crisis


Until last month, Gov. Susana Martinez resisted calls for a special session by 
lawmakers. Facing a budget shortfall for the current year of $458 million 
following another bad budget year, Sen. John Arthur Smith (who heads the 
Legislative Finance Committee) and other legislators called for a session to 
figure out how to pay the bills and contain the catastrophe.

Calling a special session is the governor's prerogative, and she sets the 
agenda at that session. By July, confronting public pressure to call lawmakers 
back, Martinez allowed that she might call a special session for as little as 4 
hours, though she offered no hint as to how the budget gap, without sweeping 
layoffs of state workers or any compromise on taxation, could be solved in four 
hours.

Now the governor has announced that she will add a bill reinstating the death 
penalty to the special session, not at next year's session as previously 
planned. So much for concentrating on our budget emergency. Indeed, she has 
hinted that other tough-on-crime measures might also be on the agenda. These 
are all spending items, at a time when revenue is dropping or being left 
uncollected, and painful cuts are being made. Late last week, the Associated 
Press reported that the state has failed to collect at least $193 million in 
taxes on insurance premiums. That's an awful lot of revenue left on the table 
while people and their communities suffer.

The governor seeks to create an opening to reinstate capital punishment by 
allowing it for the murderers of children or police officers. She is 
capitalizing on public anger over a few recent cases: the murders of Hatch 
police officer Jose Chavez, Alamogordo officer Clint Corvinus, and the 
incomprehensible torture of 10-year old Victoria Martens in Albuquerque.

Capital punishment might satisfy an impulsive desire for blood vengeance but 
criminologists have shown in numerous studies that it offers no more deterrent 
value than long prison terms. Some of the states with the highest murder rates 
are death penalty states. This conforms to common sense: the impulses and 
infirmities of a murderer's mind are not held in check by reasoned 
consideration of penalties.

Minus deterrent value, capital punishment merely empowers the state to commit 
violence and posits sadism and revenge as platforms of a civilization. It 
should also give us pause that over 150 innocent people have been rescued from 
death row, with the average time between conviction and exoneration over 11 
years. This, along with its pointless cruelty towards the rightfully convicted, 
argues for a moratorium on the practice on grounds of due process of law and 
human dignity.

It is not only a matter of morality, but of governance. Death penalty systems 
waste money, and since abandoning this savagery in 2009, New Mexico has saved 
millions of dollars each year. As for reducing crime, some proven deterrents 
include good employment, housing, access to food, health care (including 
treatment for addiction), crisis intervention, counseling services, and 
education - all of which are affected by the state's budget crisis. Remember 
that? That was the original reason for a special session.

Yet we have money to spend on death penalty cases and executions, says this 
governor who wants to close drug treatment centers and build more cells on 
death row. Even if this effort fails, the governor might be able to embarrass 
rival lawmakers ahead of the election, even if it means exploiting human loss 
for political gain.

Meanwhile, any hope of responsible governance during the state's fiscal 
emergency is being squandered.

(source: Opinion; Algernon D'Ammassa, Las Cruces Sun)






USA:

Roof jury selection underway in Charleston federal death penalty case


The 1st of some 3,000 potential jurors in the Dylan Roof death penalty trial 
began reporting Monday to the U.S. District courthouse in downtown Charleston.

Jurors were summoned, some 80 at a time, before U.S. Judge Richard Gergel, 
whose questions were aimed at weeding out those who obviously cannot or who 
will elect not to serve: people over 70, having no one else to care for young 
children and the like. Also to be excluded: those whose minds are already made 
up about Roof's guilty, or whether to impose the death penalty.

Roof, 22, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, is charged with federal hate 
crimes resulting in death in the June 2015 slayings of 9 African-Americans who 
were attending an evening Bible study at historic "Mother" Emanuel AME church 
downtown.

Of the first 80 prospective jurors in court on this morning, some 90 % were 
white. 9 were black. All were somber. Gergel deferred 2 teachers.

The initial jury selection is taking place in a relatively small courtroom on 
the 4th floor of an old federal courthouse on Broad Street. It has only about 
80 seats, nearly all of which were taken up Monday by prospective jurors.

Gergel allowed a sketch artist, along with one pool print reporter to write 
accounts of what happened. Other journalists watched the proceedings on a 
flat-screen television in a nearby courtroom. Unlike state court, no cameras or 
reporters' tape recorders are allowed in federal court. The in-court 
proceedings in this story were furnished by the pool reporter.

Roof stared down at his defense table during much of the morning. During 
Monday???s initial session, he appeared unemotional. In numerous pretrial 
hearings since last year, he has waived his right to be present in court.

The Roof case is set to be one of the most sensational criminal trials ever 
held in South Carolina, due to the racial dimensions of the case and the 
brutality of the crime.

Underscoring the emotionalism of the trial and the effect of publicity about 
the case, Judge Gergel has ordered dozens of pretrial documents to be kept 
secret so as not to taint the jury pool.

Roof also faces charges of murder in Charleston County state court. Prosecutor 
Scarlett Wilson is also seeking the death penalty in that case. Jury selection 
is set to begin in January in that case.

Monday's proceeding in federal court is designed to produce a smaller pool of 
some 700 prospective jurors. Those potential jurors will begin a more detailed 
questioning session on Nov. 7. The actual trial will not start until late 
November, observers estimate.

It's the opening day of a long, tedious and potentially confusing jury 
selection process in the Dylan Roof federal trial in the June 2015 slayings of 
9 African-Americans at a historic downtown Charleston church.

(source: thestate.com)