Tonya Maxwell

Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Attorneys for the suspected gunman in the 2015 shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church asked for a mistrial Thursday after a key witness and victim in the shooting repeatedly called their client "evil."

“He’s evil,” Felicia Sanders testified Wednesday about Dylann Roof. “There’s no place on Earth for him except the pit of hell.”

She repeated those sentiments, also saying Roof, a self-described white supremacist, is “evil as can be.”

Nine black parishioners were shot to death in the June 2015 attack at the Charleston, S.C., church, including Tywanza Sanders, the 26-year-old son of Felicia Sanders.

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The mother appeared as the first witness for the prosecution in Roof's federal trail, with her account of protecting her 11-year-old granddaughter and watching her son die drawing tears from courtroom observers, many of whom lost family members in the shooting.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel, in hearing the motion Thursday morning, ruled that he would not call a mistrial, but later told the jury that any decision on guilt or punishment is their own.

Before those instructions, Gergel admonished David Bruck, lead defense counsel for Roof, 22, saying the attorney elicited “evil” and similar statements three times from Sanders in questioning her, and said he expected the attorney would use them in pursuit of a mistrial.

Bruck denied purposefully drawing the characterization from Sanders.

The phrases came as Bruck tried to question her about a statement Roof made at the church, saying he was 21 years old and planned to kill himself.

The descriptions provided by Sanders amount to a survivor inappropriately weighing in on the death penalty, his attorneys wrote in their motion for mistrial filed Thursday morning.

“The government should have instructed its witnesses, in keeping with precedent, that such testimony — no matter how heartfelt — has no place at any stage of a capital trial,” wrote Sarah Gannett, an assistant federal public defender.

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The statement “there’s no place on Earth,” for Roof could signal to jurors the witness is advocating for a sentence of death, rather than life in prison without the possibility of release.

The issue of sentencing has been at the forefront of the trial against Roof, who has entered a not guilty plea, but also offered to plead guilty to a life sentence. Prosecutors, pursuing a capital case, have rejected that offer.

During his Wednesday opening, Bruck told jurors that an outline of the shootings as stated by the government “really did happen.”

Instead of debating guilt, he attempted to nudge them away from a death sentence and toward considering life imprisonment.

Those statements, however, drew objections from prosecutors and chastisement from the judge, who instructed Bruck to talk only about the guilt phase of the trial, rather than speak to possible sentencing.

Roof has said in court and in filings that he does not want defense attorneys to represent him in the sentencing phase, that portion of a trial when psychologists might testify and offer mitigating evidence, such as the effects of a violent childhood or a diagnosis of a mental illness.

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Before Roof dismissed his defense team for the sentencing phase, they had indicated in filings they expected to present evidence of a mental defect or a related condition. No potential diagnosis has been specified.

Both attorneys and psychologists experienced in capital cases say a primary reason counselors are fired by defendants stems from a belief by the client that he or she is not mentally ill.

Sanders’ emotional testimony prompted Gergel to call for a break as both jurors and courtroom observers began crying. Many of the latter consoled one another in a waiting area and restrooms outside the courtroom.

When Sanders again took the stand, Bruck objected to her use of the word “evil” and similar phrases, a move prosecutors opposed for coming too late because the issue was not raised immediately.

Bruck said that given Sanders' emotional testimony, he was hesitant to interrupt with an objection.

Lead prosecutor in the case, Jay Richardson, in arguing against the motion, said Sanders’ words did not go to the penalty, but instead that the defendant would find himself in hell, no matter his manner of death.

“If he kills himself, that’s where he is going, whether he dies of natural causes or the state does it,” Richardson said.

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