Aug 26, 2021 · Dylan Roof appears in court accompanied by assistant defense attorney William Maguire in Charleston, S.C., on July 18, 2015. Grace Beahm / Pool via Getty Images file
Aug 02, 2016 · Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old charged with murdering nine people in a church shooting on Wednesday, June 17, is escorted by police in Shelby, North Carolina, on Thursday, June 18. Hide Caption 2 of 17
Dec 14, 2016 · The Defense. Defense attorney David Bruck said in opening statements that Roof committed the crime but the trial involves understanding "who this person was and why on earth he would want to cause ...
Jun 22, 2021 · Lawyers for Roof are Sapna Mirchandani of the federal public defender’s office in Maryland, Margaret Farrand of the federal public defender’s …
Five days after the shooting, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a grand jury had indicted Roof on 33 federal charges: nine counts of using a firearm to commit murder and 24 civil rights violations (12 hate crime charges under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act and 12 counts under a second hate-crime statute that prohibits using force or threatening the use of force to obstruct a person's free exercise of religious beliefs ), with 18 of the charges carrying the federal death penalty.
On the evening of June 17, 2015, a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States . During a routine Bible study at the church, a white man about 21 years old, later identified as Roof, opened fire with a handgun, killing nine people.
Dylann Storm Roof (born April 3, 1994) is an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi and mass murderer convicted for perpetrating the Charleston church shooting on June 17, 2015, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. During a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Roof killed nine people, all African Americans, ...
FBI analysis of Roof's seized cellphone and computer found that he was in online communication with other white supremacists, according to unnamed officials. Although Roof's contacts did not appear to have encouraged the massacre, the investigation was said to have widened to also include other persons of interest.
On December 7, 2016, Roof's federal trial began. The jury consisted of "two black women, eight white women, one white man and one black man". Two days into the trial, Roof's confession was played in court, admitting that he had killed the people at the church before chuckling. On December 15, 2016, after about two hours of deliberation, the jury found Roof guilty on all 33 counts.
Roof personally purchased the gun used in the shooting from a retail gun store in West Columbia, using money given to him on his birthday. The Washington Post reported on July 10, 2015, that FBI Director James Comey said that Roof "was able to purchase the gun used in the attack only because of lapses in the FBI's background-check system ". On August 30, 2019, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the survivors and families of the deceased can sue the Federal government.
On May 10, 2017 , Judge Gergel denied Roof's motion for a new trial. On the same day, Gergel unsealed psychiatric reports from two court-ordered exams of Roof performed by Dr. James Ballenger, a forensic psychiatrist, as well as the transcripts of two competency hearings, all of which found Roof competent to stand trial. The court first ordered a psychiatric exam after Roof wrote a letter to prosecutors referring to his defense attorneys as "the sneakiest group of people I have ever met" and adamantly rejecting their strategy to portray him as mentally ill.
Defense attorney David Bruck said in opening statements that Roof committed the crime but the trial involves understanding "who this person was and why on earth he would want to cause so much grief."
Felicia Sanders , a survivor of the shooting, was the government's first witness. When Roof opened fire that June night, Sanders said she clutched her granddaughter tight and told her to play dead.
Roof’s purported mental illness and inability to be his own lawyer — casting aside an active defense role by David Bruck, one of the nation’s most experienced death penalty lawyers — is a major feature of Roof’s defense. “When Dylann Roof represented himself at his capital trial, he was a 22-year-old, ninth-grade dropout diagnosed ...
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Defense lawyers will advance arguments Tuesday on up to 20 issues in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, as to why Dylann Roof was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to the death penalty in 2017 after a weekslong trial. They will ask the court to vacate both the conviction and the death penalty.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., said the defense has the right to choose the strategy to overturn a conviction, even over the objections of a client. The ultimate decision rests with counsel, he said.
Fleming Smith covers crime and public safety for the Charleston area. A native Georgian, she previously covered breaking news and features for The Wall Street Journal and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Dylann Storm Roof (born April 3, 1994) is an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi and mass murderer convicted for perpetrating the Charleston church shooting on June 17, 2015, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. During a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Roof killed nine people, all African Americans, including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pin…
The attack was treated as a hate crime by police, and officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were called in to assist in the investigation and manhunt.
At 10:44 a.m., on the morning after the attack, Roof was captured in a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, approximately 245 miles (394 km) from the shooting scene. A .45-caliber pistol was found in the car during the arrest, though it was not immediately clear if it was the same one use…
On the evening of June 18, 2015, Roof waived his extradition rights and was flown to Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston. At the jail, his cell-block neighbor was Michael Slager, the former North Charleston officer charged with first-degree murder in the wake of his shooting of Walter Scott.
Dylann Roof is the first person in U.S. history to have faced both a state and fe…
On August 4, 2016, Roof was beaten by a fellow inmate while detained at the Charleston County Detention Center. Roof, who suffered hits and bruising to the face and body, was not seriously injured, and he was allowed to return to his cell after being examined by jail medical personnel. The assailant was identified as 25-year-old Dwayne Marion Stafford, who was awaiting trial on charges of first-degree assault and strong-arm robbery. Stafford was able to exit his unlocked c…
• List of death row inmates in the United States
• Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator for Dylan Storm Roof Inmate 28509-171
• "Attorney General Lynch's Statement Following the Federal Grand Jury Indictment Against Dylann Storm Roof" (Direct video link) - Remarks in text format (Archive)
• The Massacre at Emanuel AME Church at About.com