Jury Convicts Dylann Roof In Charleston Church Massacre

Dylann Roof was convicted Thursday in the chilling attack on nine black church members who were shot to death last year during a Bible study, affirming the prosecution’s portrayal of a young white man who hoped the slayings would start a race war or bring back segregation. 

Instead, the single biggest change to emerge from the June 17, 2015, slayings that shocked the nation was the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse, where it had flown for 50 years over the Capitol or on the grounds. Roof appeared with the flag in several photos in a racist manifesto. 

In his confession to the FBI, the gunman said he carried out the killings after researching “black on white crime” on the internet. He said he chose a church because that setting posed little danger to him.

CBS News

As the verdict was read, Roof just stared ahead, much as he did the entire trial. Family members of victims held hands and squeezed one another’s arms. One woman nodded her head every time the clerk said “guilty.” 

He was found guilty of all 33 charges that he faced in the case, CBS affiliate WCSC reported.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said she hopes the families of the nine black people shot to death can find some peace after the conviction.  

Jurors will reconvene early next month to hear more testimony and decide whether Roof gets the death penalty or life in prison. Roof said he wants to act as his own attorney during that phase of the trial, although the judge in the case said Roof can change his mind up to Jan. 3, WCSC reported.

About an hour into deliberations on Thursday, the jury wanted to rehear part of Roof’s videotaped confession and sent a note to U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel asking to listen again to Roof being questioned and talking about how many people he might have killed. 

Roof told FBI agents he killed about five people, and was later surprised when the agents told him nine people were shot and killed in June 2015 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church.   

Jurors heard from witnesses who testified Roof made multiple trips to Charleston in the months before the June 2015 attack at Emanuel AME Church that killed nine worshipers. They also heard from two survivors.

In a closing argument Thursday, defense attorney David Bruck conceded that Roof killed the victims and even praised the FBI investigation, but he also argued Roof was a suicidal, impressionable loner who never grasped the gravity of what he did. He asked jurors to consider what was going on in his head as he planned the killings.

The defense put up no witnesses. They tried to present evidence about his mental state, but the judge ruled it didn’t have anything to do with his guilt or innocence. 

A prosecutor said Thursday that Roof was full of hate and “immense racial ignorance” when he carried out the attack. In his closing argument, assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Williams mocked Roof for calling himself brave in his racist-filled journal and his confession to the FBI, saying the real bravery came from the victims who tried to stop him as he fired 77 bullets.

“Those people couldn’t see the hatred in his heart any more than they could see the .45-caliber handgun and the eight magazines concealed around his waist,” Williams said.

Williams’ 50-minute closing argument filled the court with tension. At times, the prosecutor raised his voice, saying Roof was a cold, calculated killer. 

“Hatred had no place in that sanctuary,” the prosecution said in their closing argument, WCSC reported. “But hatred came to those tables just the same.” 

In a lengthy recording played earlier at trial, Roof told FBI agents he picked Mother Emanuel because of its historic significance in the black community. The church is the oldest in the South and one of its founders Denmark Vesey led a failed 1822 slave rebellion that drove the church underground. 

Roof said he had felt compelled to act because of the way blacks treated whites and said the shootings were “minuscule” in comparison.