Are American Classrooms Producing Mass Shootings?
With all the mass shootings in America today, it is difficult to tease out the various motivations that prompt murderers to unleash their automatic weapons on unsuspecting and innocent individuals they do not even know. It appears that all three attended public high schools; Roof attended at least two. Racial hatred exists in the United States. Mass shootings of all types will continue to plague this country until we face the problem head on and do something about it. And racially motivated mass shootings will continue as an American tradition until we root out all sources of this bigotry and hatred.
thewestsidegazette.comDylann Roof takes church shooting appeal to US Supreme Court
Attorneys for convicted Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide how to handle disagreements over mental illness-related evidence between capital defendants and their attorneys, an issue that has played a role throughout his case over the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation. When a capital defendant who has been ruled competent to stand trial and his attorneys “disagree on whether to present mitigating evidence depicting him as mentally ill, who gets the final say?” Roof's appellate team wrote in their petition, filed late last month with the high court. Roof's self-representation and desire to block any evidence potentially portraying him as mentally ill — even if it could have helped him avoid the death penalty — has been a constant part of his case.
news.yahoo.comUS to pay $88M to families, victims of SC church massacre
Families of nine victims killed in a racist attack at a Black South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre.
Dylann Roof asks judges to reconsider recusal from his case
Dylann Roof wants an entire appellate court to reconsider a decision to recuse itself from hearing his case, as the appeal of his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation winds its way through the judicial system. Last week, Roof's attorneys made that request of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, writing that the judges who opted to sit out his case should reinstate themselves to consider his petition for a new hearing before the court. Without that move, or changing a court rule prohibiting judges visiting from other circuits from considering such requests, Roof's lawyers wrote, "no judges exist to consider" his rehearing petition, depriving him of “a critical level of appellate review.”
news.yahoo.comSC Supreme Court picks apart 2000 Heritage Act law as they question constitutionality
The S.C. Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday over the constitutionality of the Heritage Act, a 2000 law that was last debated in 2015 when lawmakers pulled the Confederate flag down from the State House grounds.
news.yahoo.comOn federal death row, inmates talk about Biden, executions
Inmates on federal death row tell The Associated Press that a leading topic of conversation through airducts they use to communicate is whether President Joe Biden will keep a campaign pledge to halt federal executions. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)CHICAGO – On federal death row, prisoners fling notes on a string under each other’s cell doors and converse through interconnected air ducts. Everyone on federal death row was convicted of killing someone, their victims often suffering brutal, painful deaths. Some 40% of federal death row inmates are Black, compared with about 13% of the U.S. population. In December, 70% of the death row inmates had COVID-19, some possibly infected via air ducts through which they communicate.
Big challenge: Biden is pressed to end federal death penalty
Action to stop scheduling new executions could take immediate pressure off Biden from opponents of the death penalty. But they want him to go much further, from bulldozing the federal death chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana, to striking the death penalty from U.S. statutes entirely. In the 22 states that have struck the death penalty from their statutes, none succeeded in passing the required laws without bipartisan support. Q: WILL BIDEN GET PUSHBACK IF HE SEEKS TO END THE FEDERAL DEATH PENALTY? Biden may also feel an obligation to do something big on the death penalty, given his past support for it.
5 years after church massacre, S Carolina protects monuments
He also left behind pictures of himself holding the gun used in the killings, posing at historic Civil War and African American sites and holding the Confederate flag. Outraged political leaders came together and overwhelmingly voted to take down a Confederate flag that flew near a monument to Confederate soldiers on the Statehouse lawn. The law protects all historical monuments and names of buildings, requiring a two-thirds vote from the state General Assembly to make any changes. The president of the University of South Carolina wants lawmakers to let the school remove the name of J. Marion Sims from a women's dorm. The time has come to take down the monuments that honor the evil that was done in the name of Charleston, in the name of South Carolina," Rivers said Tuesday at the foot of Calhoun's statue.
Dylann Roof appeals death sentence for massacre at South Carolina black church
(Reuters) - Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine black people at a South Carolina church in 2015, has appealed his conviction and death sentence, with lawyers arguing he was too mentally ill to stand trial or represent himself at sentencing. A jury found Roof guilty of 33 federal charges, including hate crimes resulting in death, for the shocking mass shooting at the landmark Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in June 2015. Roof dismissed his defense attorneys just before trial and represented himself during jury selection. The 2008 decision Indiana v. Edwards allows judges to force a lawyer on defendants who lack mental capacity, they said. (This story corrects stages at which Roof represented himself)
feeds.reuters.comMan who killed nine at South Carolina black church appeals conviction, death sentence
(Reuters) - Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine black people at a South Carolina church in 2015, has appealed his conviction and death sentence, with lawyers arguing the mentally ill defendant never should have been allowed to represent himself at trial. REUTERS/Grace Beahm/PoolThis Court should vacate Roofs convictions and death sentence, says his appeal, filed with the 4th U.S. After the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel, allowed Roof to represent himself, the defendant elected not to present any evidence. The 2008 decision Indiana v. Edwards allows judges to force a lawyer on defendants who lack mental capacity, they said. The choice is not all or nothing, the lawyers said, citing the 2018 ruling in McCoy v. Louisiana.
feeds.reuters.comDylann Roof appeals conviction, death sentence in Charleston massacre
The appellate attorneys also said Roof's trial lawyers told the judge that in their decades of experience, "none had represented a defendant so disconnected from reality." After he was arrested, Roof told FBI agents that he wanted the shootings to bring back segregation or perhaps start a race war. During a separate proceeding in state court, Roof was given nine life sentences in exchange for his guilty plea. They said the state quickly brought capital charges against Roof's "wholly-intrastate crime," but months later, federal prosecutors sought their own death sentence. "This Court should vacate Roof's convictions and death sentence," they wrote.
cbsnews.comGeorgia teen arrested for planning attack on black church
(Reuters) - A 16-year-old high school student was arrested on suspicion of planning to attack black people at a predominantly African-American church in the southeastern U.S. state of Georgia, police said on Tuesday. The youth, who police did not identify, was charged with criminal attempt to commit murder and sent to a youth detention center in Georgia. Gainesville Police Department officials said the investigation indicated that the teenager was targeting the church based on the racial demographic of its members. A 2015 attack on a church in Charleston does appear to have played some type of role in this, the New York Times quoted a police officer, Sergeant Kevin Holbrook, as saying. The Georgia teen had assembled a collection of butcher knives and other straight-edged weapons and she had visited the church once when no one was present, the Times reported.
feeds.reuters.comWhite teen accused of plotting deadly attack on black church
Police say a 16-year-old white girl was motivated by racism when she allegedly plotted to attack a historically black church in Gainesville, Georgia. "Our investigation indicated the church was targeted by the juvenile because of the racial demographic of the church members," Parrish said in a statement. Pastor Michelle Rizer-Pool told the publication the girl visited her church last Wednesday, but no events were scheduled that night. White supremacist Dylann Roof fatally shot nine black church members during their Bible study lesson at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, during the summer of 2015. More recently, the white son of a sheriff's deputy was arrested in April and accused of setting fires that destroyed three black churches in rural Louisiana.
cbsnews.comFamilies of Dylann Roof victims can sue US government, court rules
Randall Hill - Pool/Getty Images(CNN) - The families of the nine people slaughtered in a South Carolina church in 2015 can sue the US government for negligence, an appeals court has ruled. The US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's ruling that protected the government from liability under two federal laws. Roof had been arrested on a drug charge that would have blocked the gun sale had it been properly reported during the background check, the court found. Victims' families sued, alleging the government was negligent in its background check. If it had been performed properly, "no one disputes" it would have kept him from buying the gun, the appeals court wrote.
Alleged manifesto of Charleston suspect contains racist rants
A website surfaced Saturday which appeared to offer new insights about alleged Charleston church gunman Dylann Roof. As Jeff Pegues reports, the online document included a racist manifesto and disturbing photos of the 21-year-old suspect.
cbsnews.com6/20: Alleged manifesto of Charleston suspect contains racist rants; Baseball fan has what A-Rod wants most
A website surfaced Saturday which appeared to offer new insights about alleged Charleston church gunman Dylann Roof. As Jeff Pegues reports, the online document included a racist manifesto and disturbing photos of the 21-year-old suspect; New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez notched his 3,000th hit Friday night -- but the fan who caught it might not give it back. Steve Hartman interviewed Zach Hample a few years back and found out he plays hardball.
cbsnews.comNew details behind Charleston church shooting emerge
Thousands turned out for a multi-faith prayer vigil to mourn the nine people killed in South Carolina’s church massacre. As the state and residents struggle to cope in the aftermath, accused killer Dylann Roof was arraigned on several charges, including nine counts of murder. CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues reports from Charleston, South Carolina with the latest on this story.
cbsnews.comThe legal case against Charleston shooting suspect Dylann Roof
Suspected gunman Dylann Roof is expected to appear in a South Carolina courtroom Friday to be charged with murder in connection with the Charleston church shooting. CBS News legal expert Rikki Klieman discusses Roof's potential court defense.
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