Charleston Church Shooter Appeals Federal Death Sentence Amid Claims of Mental Incompetence

Lawyers for white suprema­cist Dylann Roof (pic­tured) have asked a fed­er­al appeals court to vacate his fed­er­al con­vic­tions and death sen­tences for the racial­ly-moti­vat­ed mur­ders of nine wor­shipers at an his­toric African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015. Roof’s lawyers raised more than a dozen claims of con­sti­tu­tion­al and legal error in a 321-page legal brief filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on January 28, 2020. 

Issues relat­ed to the han­dling of Roof’s com­pe­ten­cy to stand tri­al and the court’s deci­sion to allow him to rep­re­sent him­self in the penal­ty stage of the case dom­i­nat­ed the brief. Citing evi­dence of severe men­tal ill­ness the jury nev­er heard and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Roof’s men­tal health by both Roof and the pros­e­cu­tion, defense lawyers assert­ed that the Court ​“can have no con­fi­dence in the jury’s ver­dict” in the case. 

The defense appeal describes Roof as a delu­sion­al young man suf­fer­ing from the emo­tion­al­ly crip­pling effects of a com­bi­na­tion of men­tal health dis­or­ders. He was, the brief says, a ​“22-year-old, ninth-grade dropout diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia spec­trum dis­or­der, autism, anx­i­ety, and depres­sion, who believed his sen­tence didn’t mat­ter because white nation­al­ists would free him from prison after an impend­ing race war.” The brief ques­tions the court’s refusal to con­sid­er the entire­ty of Roof’s men­tal health his­to­ry when it ruled that he was com­pe­tent to stand tri­al and lat­er per­mit­ted him to represent himself.

Roof’s men­tal com­pe­ten­cy first became an issue dur­ing defense tri­al prepa­ra­tions when he became irate after real­iz­ing his lawyers intend­ed to tell the jury he was psy­chot­ic, emo­tion­al­ly frag­ile, and suf­fered from mul­ti­ple men­tal health dis­or­ders. To pre­vent pub­lic rev­e­la­tion of his men­tal ill­ness, the brief said, he ​“jet­ti­soned” expe­ri­enced defense coun­sel and asked U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Gergel to instead let him rep­re­sent him­self. Roof’s com­pe­tence, his appeal lawyers say, was com­pro­mised by the delu­sion that ​“white nation­al­ists would stage a rev­o­lu­tion, estab­lish a new gov­ern­ment, and set him free” and his des­per­ate desire to ​“avoid being labeled men­tal­ly ill because it would dimin­ish his chance of res­cue.” His pri­vate jour­nal described psy­chol­o­gy as ​“a Jewish inven­tion [that] does noth­ing but invent dis­eases and tell peo­ple they have prob­lems when they dont [sic].”

Roof’s lawyers told the tri­al count that none of them ​“had rep­re­sent­ed a defen­dant so dis­con­nect­ed from real­i­ty.” However, after lim­it­ing the scope of the men­tal health evi­dence the defense could present in the com­pe­ten­cy pro­ceed­ing, Judge Gergel ruled that Roof was com­pe­tent, call­ing him ​“cogent and artic­u­late” with ​“an extreme­ly high IQ.”

Allowed to rep­re­sent him­self at sen­tenc­ing, Roof pre­sent­ed no mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. Instead, he told jurors, ​“there’s noth­ing wrong with me psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly.” ​“I don’t have autism,” he said. ​“I’m just a sociopath.” Prosecutors, the brief said, then com­pound­ed the false­hood, telling the jury ​“Roof was a cal­cu­lat­ed killer with no signs of men­tal ill­ness. Given no rea­son to do oth­er­wise,” the defense lawyers said, ​“jurors sen­tenced Roof to death.” Roof’s incom­pe­tence and the prosecution’s con­duct, the brief argued, under­mine the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings and require that his death sen­tence be vacated.

The brief argues that the sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings also were taint­ed by the prosecution’s first penal­ty-phase wit­ness, who ​“repeat­ed­ly called Roof ​‘evil,’ and told jurors to send him to ​‘the pit of hell.’” This ​“inflam­ma­to­ry” and ​“dehu­man­iz­ing” tes­ti­mo­ny, the lawyers wrote, was irrepara­bly prej­u­di­cial. The defense lawyers also raised a tech­ni­cal pro­ce­dur­al issue that, they argue, requires dis­miss­ing the fed­er­al case against Roof. The church shoot­ing was a ​“whol­ly-intrastate crime,” they wrote, and the United States gov­ern­ment there­fore lacked author­i­ty to try it in fed­er­al court. The fed­er­al tri­al ​“shouldn’t have hap­pened at all,” they said.