In the filing, Assistant Federal Public Defender Sarah Gannett, the lead attorney for the defense, said while some aspects of jury selection in death penalty cases have been considered by the courts, other issues she puts forward are being raised for the first time.
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Dylann Roof faces multiple murder counts and federal hate crimes for the deadly shooting in June 2015 at a church in SC.
Dylann Roof’s lawyers filed a 34-page legal motion in Federal District Court in Charleston on Monday afternoon arguing that the death penalty is unconstitutional and should not be on the table for his case. In instances of cases that would permit the death penalty, the process is called “death qualification”, or finding a jury willing to condemn someone to death. Roof, who is white, is charged with 33 federal offenses, including hate crime charges for allegedly targeting his victims on the basis of their race and religion.
“The facts of this case are indisputably grave”, Roof’s defense team stated in its motion to strike the death penalty. Prosecutors at both the state and federal levels are seeking the death penalty for Roof.
“The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision”, Attorney General Loretta Lynch had said in May, regarding the decision to pursue the death penalty.
“The [Federal Death Penalty Act] may have been designed with as much care as possible under the circumstances, the capital sentencing process that the statute provides is constitutionally inadequate in practice”, the lawyers argued.
Roof is accused of gunning down nine parishioners Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in June 2015. Roof also faces a state capital punishment trial, which is scheduled to begin in January. He will plead guilty if the death sentence is withdrawn by the government.
His federal trial is set for November.
During his trial, Roof once again caused outrage after the judge who arraigned his case, Charleston County Magistrate James Gosnell Jr. told the court that Roof’s family are also victims of the incident.
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In 2015, the number of prisoners executed in the United States fell to its lowest in 25 years (28) and the number of people sentenced to death dropped to its lowest point in 41 years (49), according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
