Charleston: Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a white man accused of killing nine black parishioners at a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina, last June, the US Justice Department said.
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“Following the department’s rigorous review process to thoroughly consider all relevant factual and legal issues, I have determined that the Justice Department will seek the death penalty”, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced today.
Dylann Roof posing for a photo while holding a Confederate flag: an undated image that appeared on Lastrhodesian.com, a website investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with Charleston shootings.
Mr. Roof, a 22-year-old white supremacist, was arrested in North Carolina 14 hours after the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, which claimed the lives of nine people ages 26 to 87, including the pastor, Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, 41, a prominent state senator.
Court filings show prosecutors want the punishment for Roof on two offenses: obstruction of exercise of religion by force resulting in death, and the use of firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence.
South Carolina’s government is also planning to try Roof on murder charges and it, too, will seek the death penalty.
Roof is also charged in state court with nine counts of murder, and SC prosecutors have already announced plans to seek the death penalty when he stands trial on those charges next year.
His federal trial had been delayed while U.S. prosecutors decided whether to seek the death penalty.
Federal prosecutors rarely seek the death penalty against defendants. Solicitor Scarlett Wilson has said she wants her case to be tried first.
“The families will support this decision”.
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The government previous year successfully asked for the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the confessed co-author of the 2013 Boston Marathon bomb attacks that killed three people and wounded 264.
