Charleston church shooter making appellate arguments

[SouthBayDem]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The man on federal death row for the racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation is making his appellate argument that his conviction and death sentence should be overturned.

Oral arguments in the case of Dylann Roof are scheduled to be held Tuesday before a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Virginia. Appellate Judge Jay Richardson, who as an assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuted Roof’s case, is not part of the panel.

In 2017, Roof became the first person in the U.S. sentenced to death for a federal hate crime. Authorities have said Roof opened fire during the closing prayer of a 2015 Bible study session at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel AME Church, raining down dozens of bullets on those assembled. Roof was 21 years old at the time.

In a lengthy brief, Roof’s attorneys argue that an appellate court should vacate Roof’s convictions and death sentence, or remand his case to court for a “proper competency evaluation.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/sc-state-wire-donald-trump-charleston-religion-shootings-d59bf47614071023aec651017cae557e

[Aristus]

1. I say if you're competent enough to load, aim, and fire a gun,

you're competent enough to stand trial for it, and have your conviction upheld by the court.

Bottom line...

[TwilightZone]

13. It's not that simple.

Plenty of people who are able to kill someone with a gun are determined to be mentally incompetent. That ability to commit the action doesn't solely prove anything in that regard.

In this case, his competency should have been established prior to or during his initial trial. In my personal opinion, everything in context points to him being competent - planned well in advance, clearly understood what he was doing, claims he nearly didn't go through with it because everyone was nice to him, etc.

This is just a hail mary with very little chance of success.

[Aristus]

14. In a Venn diagram of 'Evil' and 'Mentally Incompetent', there is undoubtedly some overlap.

But I think hate-boy is just evil.

I'm actually fine if his death sentence is overturned; I'm opposed to the death penalty.

But overturning the conviction would itself be an act of evil.

Let him rot his worthless life away in the slam...

[Warpy]

23. Oh, I'd love to see him sit on death row for 20 years or so

because he'll only join a white power prison gang in the general population, be one of their heroes.

However, competency to stand trial has a pretty narrow definition, he had to have the capacity to tell right from wrong at the time of the crime. Since he fled the scene, going across the state line so he wouldn't get caught. No matter how fanatical he was in his bigotry, his flight demonstrates that he knew there would be legal consequences and sought to evade them.

IOW, he hasn't got a prayer, not even in SC.

[multigraincracker]

2. I'd rather he spent the rest

of his life in the Cuckoos nest with a certain nurse.

[mn9driver]

3. Not a fan of the death penalty. But if I were to make an exception, he would be on the list.

[Hoyt]

4. More evidence that the majority of gunners are racists.

?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale

[TwilightZone]

12. No.

It's evidence that he's a racist. It says nothing about anyone else.

The majority may very well be, but one person does not a trend make. There are also a lot of liberal gunners, some of them seemingly as adamant about it as many on the right. I wouldn't automatically assume they're racists on that basis alone.

[Hoyt]

16. Sorry, but he's just one more to add to millions like this --

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[leftieNanner]

27. Why do they all look like this?

[canetoad]

28. It's something to do

With how they all accessorize.

[leftieNanner]

30. A nice silk scarf and some pearls maybe?

But no. Camo, obscene guns, and ugly.

SMDH

[llashram]

5. he'll be free soon

[struggle4progress]

6. 18 USC § 17

It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution under any Federal statute that, at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts. Mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute a defense.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/17

[struggle4progress]

7. Scouted church for months before mass shooting

By Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry Hawes and Abigail Darlington
Dec 13, 2016 Updated Dec 14, 2016

... Data culled from Roof’s GPS navigation device showed the self-avowed white supremacist made seven trips to Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, the last on the evening of the June 2015 massacre. He often lingered for hours in the area before making the 90-minute trip back to his home outside Columbia ...

https://www.postandcourier.com/church_shooting/testimony-shows-dylann-roof-scouted-emanuel-ame-church-for-months-before-mass-shooting/article_ce5fa596-c12d-11e6-903b-974d94ad04f3.html

[struggle4progress]

8. Almost didn't go through with shooting

June 19, 2015, 9:01 AM EDT / Updated June 19, 2015, 10:26 AM EDT
By Erik Ortiz and Daniel Arkin

... Roof told police that he "almost didn't go through with it because everyone was so nice to him" ...

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/charleston-church-shooting/dylann-roof-almost-didnt-go-through-charleston-church-shooting-n378341

[lonely bird]

9. Time for some Lubyanka justice?

[marble falls]

19. Absofuckinglutely not. What a GOPish thing to even think! You really didn't mean that.

[RVN VET71]

21. One can daydream, can't one?

I would rather he be incarcerated for life in one of those nasty cells in Langley. But I’d certainly settle for life in a Supermax. At the same time, I’d like to imagine a Clive Barker eternity of punishment for him.

“I almos’ din’t kill them n-words on account they wuz so nice to me,” is not exculpatory. It deserves special attention and treatment by demons in hell. But I digress.

[marble falls]

24. Who's excupating that? We have transparent, uniform laws and rules (enforced indifferently sometime)

... but we do have courts to redress that.

We don't like the way the GOP whizzes past the law and the way to correct that is to not act like them. We can beat them. We are beating them and we need to keep attention on them.

But it won't take and doen't need flipping a switch.

I think about it every single time some criminal has pushed a crime into the truly and solidly bizarre outrage, and in the end I recognize that the death penalty is incapable of fair and equal imposition based on reason, having nothing to do with stoked emotions.

My next fear is that every execution makes it easier to execute innocent people, particularly PoC.

Plus I do not want to give them any martyrs. I want him to be what he is: a garden variety racist criminal. I don't want him a hero, I want everyone to how pathetic he really and truly is.

[RVN VET71]

29. The murderer, by presenting his feelings to the police.

Clearly, he wanted the (white) police to think better of him -- or less bad of him -- because he felt a little hesitant about slaughtering the people in the church. No, no one else but the murderer was seeking exculpation, or at least amelioration.

And to reiterate, I don’t want the little peckersniff to be executed, either. I relish the idea of him living a long and boring and desperate life in Supermax -- which makes me, perhaps, more savage than some who would see him executed. He’s committed a horrible crime for which there can be no forgiveness from society -- certainly not from me.

And as for the death penalty, I agree with the old saw: if even one innocent person is executed, the punishment is evil and indefensible. And the fact is that America has seen much evidence of the state-ordered murder of people who turned out to be innocent.

[marble falls]

31. However differently we come to the conclusion, we agree on capital punishment. And that ...

... the little weasel deserves more than we can ethically and morally give him.

[struggle4progress]

10. Caught in Shelby, NC

by: FOX8 Digital Desk, CNN Wire
Posted: Jun 18, 2015 / 11:19 AM EDT / Updated: Jun 18, 2015 / 11:19 AM EDT

Dylan Storm Roof .. was arrested in Shelby, N.C., on Thursday, about 250 miles from Charleston ... Roof was currently out on bond in connection with multiple recent arrests on drug and trespassing charges ...

https://myfox8.com/news/captured-charleston-church-shooting-suspect-has-been-caught-in-shelby-nc/

[struggle4progress]

11. So he was organized enough:

(1) to plan the shooting over a period of months;
(2) to hesitate killing all these people because they were nice to him; and
(3) to flee the state after the crime

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

15. Fuck that little shit

Let him rot in prison. That's probably tougher than the death penalty.

[twodogsbarking]

17. Our justice system sucks much of the time.

I don't see that changing.

[marble falls]

20. That works for me, too. I have problems with the death penalty. Usually the Fed gets involved ...

... by filing civil rights violation in cases where the local courts fail to punish criminals. This is the first time I've ever heard of a death penalty for a civil right's charge.

[marye50]

18. I'm shocked trump didn't pardon him of the federal charges nt

[melm00se]

22. Less than 10% of appeals are successful

but that in no way should limit the convicted's rights to do so.

[joetheman]

25. If every US gun owner were told to turn in their guns by midnight or live the rest of their lives

as black people within the USA, what do you think would happen? It's the plot of a movie I am working on.

One scenario has the gun lovers trying to kill as many black people as possible before midnight.

Another scenario has many gun lovers shooting them selves.

Another scenario has them all trying to leave the country for another country only to find that most other countries outlaw or ban guns so they end up being stuck on a ship that begins to sink because of the weight of the guns. Does anyone believe they will toss their guns overboard?

Add another scenario, I will copyright it for you.

[Lovie777]

26. Oh my . .. .....

I had to chuckle and I would go with the middle one.

[Omaha Steve]

32. Locking it now

Announcement of a court date coming up on Tuesday is not news. Can be posted in GD.

Post the latest news from reputable mainstream news websites and blogs. Important news of national interest only. No analysis or opinion pieces. No duplicates. News stories must have been published within the last 12 hours. Use the published title of the story as the title of the discussion thread.