Tonya Maxwell

Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The death-penalty trial of a white man accused of gunning down nine black church members during a midweek Bible study was delayed Tuesday after a federal judge determined the defendant must be evaluated for mental competency.

Jury selection in the federal case against Dylann Roof, 22, was scheduled to begin Wednesday but now has been pushed off until Nov. 21.

“The competency evaluation is now under way with a report to the court anticipated" Monday, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel wrote in a two-paragraph order filed Tuesday evening. “The best practice in such circumstances is to delay court proceedings until a competency determination is made.”

Gergel wrote that he expects to conduct a hearing Nov. 16 on whether Roof is mentally fit to be on trial will issue an order two days afterward.

Jury selection to resume Wednesday in Dylann Roof trial

Roof stands accused of 33 federal charges, many of them based on hate-crime laws, in the June 17, 2015, shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Officials said he joined parishioners at a Wednesday evening Bible class and spent about an hour in study before firing on the group, leaving nine people dead.

The church, known as Mother Emanuel, is among the nation’s oldest historically black houses of worship. Before the shooting, Roof wrote a racially charged manifesto saying he targeted Charleston because it is South Carolina’s most historic city and targeted the church because he wanted to start a race war.

Roof earlier had offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, a deal that prosecutors rejected. They moved forward with a death-penalty case.

Jury selection in Dylann Roof trial begins

The most rigorous phase of jury selection, one in which prospective jurors would be questioned individually, was scheduled to begin Monday, but Gergel suddenly was postponed it that morning after Roof’s defense team filed a motion under seal.

The motion required his immediate attention, Gergel said. Shortly after, the judge had a closed hearing on the issue, barring the presence of prosecutors, the press and the public.

He declined to discuss the nature of the hearing, writing in an order that divulging it would infringe on attorney-client privilege and Roof’s right to a fair and impartial trial.

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Both prosecutors and defense lawyers have declined to comment on the competency issue.

Should the court determine that Roof is incompetent to stand trial, that decision could temporary delay a trial or derail it altogether.

Competency became a major issue in the 2011 case of Jared Loughner, charged in the Tucson, Ariz., shootings that targeted Rep. Gabby Giffords. The Arizona Democrat was wounded but survived.

Dylann Roof attacked next to jail shower

Six others were slain in the attack.

The courts first found Loughner incompetent to stand trial but later restored his competency. He then pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to seven life terms.

“The court is mindful that this delay in jury selection may be disappointing to some, but it is the court’s duty to conduct a fair trial and follow procedures which protect the legal rights of the defendant,” Gergel wrote in the Roof order. “Under the present circumstances, the court finds this brief delay in jury selection to serve the ends of justice.”

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