RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the conviction and sentence of a man on federal death row for the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond affirmed Dylann Roof’s conviction and sentence in the shootings at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
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 Bible study at the church, raining down dozens of bullets on those assembled. He was 21 at the time.
In his appeal, Roof’s attorneys argued that he was wrongly allowed to represent himself during sentencing, a critical phase of his trial. Roof successfully prevented jurors from hearing evidence about his mental health, “under the delusion,” his attorneys argued, that “he would be rescued from prison by white-nationalists — but only, bizarrely, if he kept his mental-impairments out of the public record.”
Roof’s lawyers said his convictions and death sentence should be vacated or his case should be sent back to court for a “proper competency evaluation.”
The 4th Circuit found that the trial judge did not commit an error when he found Roof was competent to stand trial and issued a scathing rebuke of Roof’s crimes.
“Dylann Roof murdered African Americans at their church, during their Bible-study and worship. They had welcomed him. He slaughtered them. He did so with the express intent of terrorizing not just his immediate victims at the historically important Mother Emanuel Church, but as many similar people as would hear of the mass murder,” the panel wrote in is ruling.
“No cold record or careful parsing of statutes and precedents can capture the full horror of what Roof did. His crimes qualify him for the harshest penalty that a just society can impose,” the judges wrote.
One of Roof’s attorneys, Margaret Alice-Anne Farrand, a deputy federal public defender, declined to comment on the ruling.
All of the judges in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers South Carolina, recused themselves from hearing Roof’s appeal; one of their own, Judge Jay Richardson, prosecuted Roof’s case as an assistant U.S. Attorney. The panel that heard arguments in May and issued the ruling on Wednesday was comprised of judges from several other appellate circuits.
Following his federal trial, Roof was given nine consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty in 2017 to state murder charges, leaving him to await execution in a federal prison and sparing his victims and their families the burden of a second trial.
President Joe Biden as a candidate said he’d work to end federal executions. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in March that he continues to have “grave concerns” about it.
Biden has connections to the case. As vice president, Biden attended the funeral for one of those slain, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who also pastored the congregation. During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden frequently referenced the shooting, saying that a visit to Mother Emanuel helped him heal in the aftermath of the death of his son, Beau.
Roof’s attorneys could ask the full 4th Circuit to reconsider the panel’s ruling. If unsuccessful in his direct appeal, Roof could file what’s known as a 2255 appeal, or a request that the trial court review the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence. He could also petition the U.S. Supreme Court or seek a presidential pardon
Religious leaders and politicians react to the Saturday morning shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, where a man killed 11 people and wounded six in one of the deadliest attacks on Jews in U.S. history:
“This evil Anti-Semitic attack is an assault on humanity. It will take all of us working together to extract the poison of Anti-Semitism from our world. We must unite to conquer hate.” — President Donald Trump.
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“We grieve for the Americans murdered in Pittsburgh. All of us have to fight the rise of anti-Semitism and hateful rhetoric against those who look, love, or pray differently. And we have to stop making it so easy for those who want to harm the innocent to get their hands on a gun.” — former President Barack Obama.
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“The actions of Robert Bowers represent the worst of humanity.” — Scott Brady, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
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“Today, we saw another horrific act of hate at a house of worship — this time, the murder of at least eight congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue … It reminds us of the slaughter of nine African American worshippers at Charleston’s Mother Emmanuel Church in 2015, the killings of six Sikh worshippers at a temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in 2014, and, of course, the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 that left four young African American girls dead. The violence in Pittsburgh follows on the heels of a string of attempted pipe bombings by a white supremacist who targeted frequent critics of President Trump. Our hearts go out to the families of the most recent shootings.” — Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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“We are devastated. Jews targeted on Shabbat morning at synagogue, a holy place of worship, is unconscionable. Our hearts break for the victims, their families, and the entire Jewish community.” — Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League.
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“I was heartbroken and appalled by the murderous attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue today. The entire people of Israel grieve with the families of the dead. We stand together with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh. We stand together with the American people in the face of this horrendous anti-Semitic brutality. And we all pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video message posted online.
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“This has always been a thought in the back of my mind, scenarios just like this. During the week the building is locked. We have a security camera to see who comes. But on Sabbath it’s an open door. And there are people right there where he would have walked in.” — Chuck Diamond, former Rabbi at the Tree of Life Synagogue.
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“When Jews are murdered in Pittsburgh, the people of Israel feel pain. All Israel are responsible for one another.” — Naftali Bennett, Minister of Education and Minister of Diaspora Affairs in Israel.
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“We are thinking of ‘our brothers and sisters, the whole house of Israel, in this time of trouble,’ as we say in the morning prayers. We are thinking of the families of those who were murdered and praying for the quick recovery of those who were injured. I am sure that the law enforcement agencies and the legal authorities in the U.S. will investigate this horrific event thoroughly and that justice will be served on the despicable murderer.” — Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
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“We send our thoughts and prayers to those affected by this morning’s tragedy in Pittsburgh. We will continue to pray for everyone involved.” — Pittsburgh Steelers.
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“We are incredibly saddened to hear of this morning’s tragedy at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. We send our thoughts and prayers to all those affected.” — Pittsburgh Penguins.
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“We are sickened by this horrific attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s historic Jewish neighborhood. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the dead and injured as well as the rest of the congregation and Jewish community.” — Simon Wiesenthal Center.
RACIAL TARGET: James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, was standing in a parking lot when two carloads of white teenagers allegedly jumped him, yelling racial epithets, before driving over him with a pickup truck.
A little less than a year ago, I pleaded with African Americans to stop using the word “racism” as a kneejerk response to any sort of problematic situation or behavior. As a way of demonstrating how possible it is, I vowed to abstain from using “the r-word” for at least a year, as a way of doing my part to tone down the rhetorical flame wars that have come to dominate contemporary political conversation.
My point in doing so was not to deny that racism exists, but rather, by temporarily banishing it, to allow the term “racism” to be reserved only for situations that truly call for it. The truth is that while racism still exists in various forms today, trying to call it out without subscribing to a commonly held and understood definition becomes problematic as racial dynamics in the United States of America continue to evolve. In other words, what racism is and looks like to me may be different from what it is and how it looks to you … if we can’t get that ironed out, how can we solve the race problem as it currently exists?
* * *
Today, I’ve broken my vow.
I’m sorry that I couldn’t go the whole year. I wanted to. Really, I did.
I probably would’ve been in the clear had I not read about the senseless vehicular homicide of James Craig Anderson in Jackson, Mississippi. According to eyewitness accounts and video footage, Anderson had been beaten severely by at least two young White males (whose names I will not dignify by referencing here), who had set out with the intent of bringing harm to the first Black person they ran across. And after one of them had left the scene, the other one literally ran over the victim with his truck … then bragged about it later at a local McDonald’s.
Let me say this slowly, so as not to be misunderstood.
THAT. WAS. RACIST.
* * *
That’s not all it is, of course. It’s also the work of a sociopath, whose behavior shocked his friends enough to cause one of them to lie when asked if she knew the assailant, and who, according to a local pastor, had a history of bullying other teenagers.
But make no mistake; this crime was mostly about racism.
The most sociologically accepted definition of racism is that it consists of race prejudice plus power.
The reason why the “plus power” part is added in there is because charges of racism are usually too easily dismissed by people who claim immunity because no one can see inside the heart. People in the public eye accused of racism, according to Jay Smooth of ill doctrine, usually try to turn public attention away from what they did and tend to frame the issue around who they are (“I’m not a racist! That’s not who I am!”).
Focusing on what a person did is usually a better way to resolve minor incidents, because the alternative is combing through the racial history of everyone who ever makes a racially insensitive comment or forwards a racist email, and nobody has that kind of time.
But in this particular crime, context matters. And you don’t have to be a regular on CSI to know that these crimes were, well … racist as hell.
If it had taken place in rural Oregon or Montana, I might’ve been willing to view this crime only as a momentary lapse in judgment. But the troubled racial history of Mississippi, too numerous to even attempt to recount here, casts an ominous light on this whole affair. The rest of the details just fill in the blanks.
Fundamentally, the beating and subsequent homicide of James Craig Anderson was the result of two White males, accompanied by friends, using their locus of power to inflict pain and suffering on, quite literallythe first Black person they saw. It was about them feeling entitled to inflict such pain by virtue of their racial identity, and expecting to get away with it for the same reason.
And whether or not it should be considered a hate crime, or whether or not hate crimes are a necessary classification in our criminal justice system… all of that is beside the point.
The point is this:
If THAT isn’t racist, then just forget it … the word no longer exists.
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Now that I’ve spent hundreds of words stating the obvious, it’s worth reiterating my previous stance.
If we as Black people can tamp down on our use of the word “racism” as a catch-all equivalent to “wrongdoing by White people,” it will help to promote more effective communication from people across various ideological and racial boundaries.
But it’s also necessary for an entirely different reason.
The blight of institutional racism is a tragic stain on American history, and it is cheapened every time we apply that word to conflicts and incidents of a vastly inferior magnitude.
Especially when we do it over the Internet.
The repeated rhetorical equivalency of heinous crimes with comical misunderstandings has produced such a climate of jaded skepticism on the internet that the very phrase, “that’s racist” has morphed into a caricatured catchphrase meme, complete with its own alternative spelling (“thassraycess!”).
* * *
If the latest horrific crime in Jackson has taught us anything, it’s that THIS is the real legacy of racism in America.
So like I said, I’m sorry I couldn’t go the full year.
But I’m sorry to say, some of us Black folks couldn’t go a whole month, or even a whole week, without complaining about racism. And if those complaints are about something trivial, like whether or not Chris Brown gets the same kind of media coverage as Charlie Sheen, we ought to keep our mouths shut.
