[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 10




USA:

Jury sentences Dylann Roof to death for Charleston church slayings

'I still feel like I had to do it': Dylann Roof makes chilling closing argument



A federal grand jury sentenced Dylann Roof to death on Tuesday for killing nine 
black parishioners during a massacre inside a church here last year.

Roof was convicted last month of 33 counts of federal hate crimes. The same 
jury that found him guilty on all counts last month deliberated Tuesday for 
just under three hours before deciding his sentence.

Earlier Tuesday, Roof, 22, had stood before the jury and delivered a halting 
and cryptic closing argument, suggesting that the prosecution “hates me” and 
that his murders of nine parishioners at a Bible study meeting in 2015 were not 
motivated by hatred of black people.

“Anyone that thinks I’m filled with hatred has no idea what real hatred is,” 
said Roof, a self-described white supremacist who has said he hoped his 
high-profile killings would incite a race war in America. “They don’t know 
anything about me. They don’t know what real hatred looks like. They think they 
do, but they don’t.”

“I would say that in this case, the prosecution and anyone else who hates me, 
are the ones that have been misled,” Roof said in a soft voice, standing before 
the eight women and four men who, shortly after, were to begin deliberating 
whether he will be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility 
of parole.

“Wouldn’t it be fair to say that the prosecution hates me?” Roof said, noting 
that prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.

Roof told the jury they might think, ” ‘Of course they hate you; everyone hates 
you. They have good reason to hate you.’ I don’t deny it.”

For the first time, Roof also seemed to obliquely raise the possibility that 
some emotional or mental condition may have led to his killing spree. 
Previously, Roof had clashed with his court-appointed attorneys who wanted to 
introduce evidence of mental illness.

“Um, I think it’s safe to say that no one in their right mind wants to go into 
a church and kill people,” said Roof, wearing a light blue cable-knit sweater 
and gray khakis, at the start of his seven-minute closing argument.

Roof pointed out to the jury that in his confession to the FBI, “I told them I 
had to do it. … Obviously that’s not true. Nobody made me do it.”

Without directly explaining his meaning, Roof then said, “I felt like I had to 
do it, and I still feel like I had to do it.”

Roof also noted that he had a right to ask the jury to spare his life, but “I’m 
not sure what good that would do.”

Roof said FBI officials in his interrogation asked him, “So is it safe to say 
that you don’t like black people?”

“My response to them was, ‘Well, I don’t like what black people do,’ ” he said.

If he hated black people, Roof said, “wouldn’t I have just said, ‘Yes, I don’t 
like black people’?”

He noted that imposition of the death penalty required a unanimous decision by 
the jury.

“Only one of you needs to disagree,” he said, noting that each of them has said 
during jury selection that they would stand up for what they thought was right.

With that, Roof paused, looked up and said:

“That’s all, thank you.”

Roof’s closing statement followed a detailed two-hour closing argument by 
prosecutor Jay Richardson, who recapped the facts of the case, which have been 
uncontested by Roof.

Roof’s guilt was never in doubt; he admitted to FBI interrogators that he had 
planned for months to kill black worshipers at Emanuel African Methodist 
Episcopal Church, known as Mother Emanuel, because of the church’s historic 
significance in the black community — he said it would “make the biggest wave” 
and hopefully inspire other white people to kill black people.

The only question was whether Roof, a ninth-grade dropout, would be sentenced 
to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Roof seemed to 
all but guarantee his fate by choosing to fire his court-appointed lawyers — 
including a respected death penalty specialist — and represent himself during 
the penalty phase of the trial.

Richardson told the jury how Roof had planned the shootings for months and had 
become a radicalized racist online in recent years — especially since the 
killing of black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, a white 
man.

“He feels no remorse because it was worth it to him,” Richardson said.

Richardson displayed photos of all nine victims, who ranged in age from 26 to 
87 — contrasting photos of them smiling in life and lying crumpled and bloody 
on a church basement floor after being shot by Roof.

Richardson also noted that Roof considered Adolf Hitler “an icon, someone to be 
emulated,” and even loaded 88 bullets into his gun’s magazines — a common white 
supremacist symbol: H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, and 88 represents 
“Heil Hitler.”

Richardson urged the jury to “speak the truth and hold this defendant 
accountable for his actions. Sentence this defendant to death.”

(source: Washington Post)