Dylann Roof To Represent Himself; Could He Get Off?

Roof is a self-described white supremacist and those people are IN CHARGE these days.

Dylann Roof. Tell me this guy couldn't win a State Senate Seat in South Carolina if he could get out of jail. (Photo by Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images)

Dylann Roof. Tell me this guy couldn’t win a state Senate seat in South Carolina if he could get out of jail. (Photo by Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images)

Dylann Roof, the suspected Charleston Church shooter, has been granted leave to represent himself in his upcoming capital murder case. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel said that he “continue[s] to believe that the decision is unwise.” But he found that Roof had the mental capacity to represent himself. A lawyer will be assigned to back up Roof.

Roof is accused of slaughtering nine people during a prayer meeting at the Emanuel AME Church in 2015. The Department of Justice rejected a plea deal last week. Roof had agreed to plead guilty and take a life sentence in exchange for the government taking the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors refused.

I’d have taken the deal.

Sure, it seems like a slam-dunk case. But Roof is a self-described white supremacist and those people are IN CHARGE these days. Are you sure, totally sure, that we’ll be able to find 12 random people in South Carolina willing to convict a white man for killing black people? We live in Trumpworld now. I’m not taking it for granted that murdering black churchgoers is a thing white people in South Carolina view as illegal.

If you are going for jury nullification, representing yourself might be the right way to go. A lawyer might be better at making Roof look sympathetic. Roof is probably in the best position to make himself look justified. Not legally. Clear as I can tell, white people can only shoot one black person at a time to be legally justified when they murder black people. “He was black” is a good enough reason. “They were black,” not so much.

But socially? Why shouldn’t Roof throw this Hail Mary? He reads The Crusader, probably. He knows his side is winning. Appealing directly to the racial animus of his fellow South Carolinians seems like an intelligent way to go, right now. I mean, Oregon just decided that white guys could take over federal property without consequences, and we know South Carolina values property more than it values its African-American citizens.

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I’m not predicting Roof will get off because, again, the mass shooting of black people has an indiscriminate air people don’t like. But I’m saying he could get off. In this world, in this country, in that state, he absolutely could take a walk. Self-representation seems like exactly the kind of thing an “authentic” racist would do… and we know how important authenticity has become.

Dylann Roof to Represent Himself at Trial in Charleston Church Shootings [New York Times]


Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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