|
Dylann Roof, 23,
is charged in state court with murdering nine African American
parishioners as they closed their eyes in prayer at a Bible
study session.
Roof agreed to plead guilty in state court under a deal with
prosecutors after being convicted of 33 federal crimes,
including hate crimes and obstruction of religion resulting in
death. In January, a jury found that he deserved the death
penalty.
Pleading guilty to the state charges will allow for Roof's
transfer to death row and spare survivors and relatives of the
victims a second round of courtroom testimony detailing his
rampage on June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal
Church in Charleston.
He will be sentenced to life in prison on the state charges,
which include attempted murder of three survivors of the
shooting, solicitor Scarlett Wilson said last month. State
prosecutors abandoned efforts to seek a second death penalty.
Roof was ordered into the custody of U.S. Marshals last week. He
has been held at the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in
Charleston County awaiting his state trial.
He is expected to be transferred to the federal prison in Terre
Haute, Indiana, that holds male death row prisoners, according
to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that
monitors U.S. capital punishment.
Since 1988, when the federal death penalty was reinstated, 76
defendants in the United States have been sentenced to death and
three prisoners have been executed, according to the center's
website.
Roof would become the 62nd current federal death row inmate, and
appeals in such cases can take a decade or more, the center's
executive director, Robert Dunham, said in a telephone
interview.
(Editing by Letitia Stein and Matthew Lewis)
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
|
