Judge J.C. Nicholson will hear from attorneys during a hearing Wednesday in Charleston. The judge also indicated the 911 calls could be released, but that there had been no decision whether it would be the tapes or simply transcripts.
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In an interview after the hearing, media lawyer Jay Bender said: “Nicholson said he “didn’t see how at this stage he could release (911) tapes of gunfire and people screaming and dying”.
Roof is from Columbia and had been staying with friends in Red Bank, in Lexington County, before the shooting.
A group from the largest township in Illinois is proposing that Emanuel AME Church and the City of Charleston receive the Nobel Peace Prize for the way the community handled the aftermath of the Charleston church shootings.
A guilty plea by Dylann Roof, 21, in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole also would spare the victims’ families and survivors of the shootings from the trauma of trial proceedings, Roof’s attorney Bill McGuire said.
The case against Roof, who is charged with nine counts of murder and faces federal hate crimes prosecution, could be jeopardized by pretrial publicity if the records are released, Nicholson said when he issued the order in July.
News organizations say the order is too board and is prohibiting the release of police reports and emergency radio communications. Prosecutors in that case also have not said whether they’ll seek the death penalty.
Roof’s image was caught on a surveillance camera outside the church as he left the scene June 17, and he was arrested in western North Carolina the next morning. Meek informed reporters in June that Roof had earlier said that he “wanted something to spark up the race war”.
A meeting for attorneys and jury selection is set for November 3.
“I kind of broke down on the front porch in front of him”, he said.
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Photos of Roof posing with the Confederate flag circulated on social media, leading to a vote by South Carolina’s legislature to remove the rebel flag from a memorial on the state capitol grounds. “We didn’t get everything, but we knew we weren’t going to”.
