Attorneys for Dylann Roof file motion to vacate death sentence

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Attorneys for the man who opened fire at a Charleston church in 2015, killing nine members of the congregation, have filed a motion to vacate his sentence.

The motion to vacate Dylann Roof’s sentence was filed in US District Court – South Carolina on April 17. Documents detail 18 claims, two of which have been redacted, as to why attorneys argue Roof’s death sentence should be vacated.

Charleston attorney Jill E.M. HaLevi and Indianapolis attorney Angela S. Elleman filed the motion on behalf of Roof.

Attorneys are asking for a new penalty phase trial using the 18 claims as justification. The penalty phase is where sentencing is decided.

Roof was sentenced to death in 2017 for killing nine Black church members during a bible study. The decision made him the first person ordered to be executed for a federal hate crime.

The claims listed below are directly from the filing:

• CLAIM 3: The trial court violated Dylann’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights when it failed to strike prospective jurors for cause under Morgan v. Illinois, forcing Dylann to exhaust all his peremptory strikes.
• CLAIMS 4-9: Ineffective assistance that resulted in the jury hearing no mitigating evidence.
• CLAIM 10: Trial counsel was ineffective because lead counsel David Bruck, over the team’s opposition, cross-examined Felicia Sanders to disastrous result, and he failed to timely object.
• CLAIM 11: Trial counsel ineffectively disregarded the advice of their jury consultant and tried his case in a venue that was saturated with community bias, in violation of Dylann’s right to a fair trial.
• CLAIM 12: Dylann was denied Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel by counsel’s failure to zealously argue that the federal charges should be dismissed for reasons including lack of federal jurisdiction and unconstitutional vagueness.
• CLAIM 13: Counsel was ineffective on direct appeal.
• CLAIM 14: 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)’s definitions of “crime of violence” are unconstitutionally vague and, as such, §§ 924(c) and (j) cannot serve as the basis for any of Dylann’s convictions or death sentences; alternatively, based on intervening Supreme Court cases, Dylann is entitled to relief.
• CLAIM 15: Under current law, the statutes under which Dylann was convicted and sentences are unconstitutional, undermining the federal government’s jurisdiction.
• CLAIM 16: The Eighth Amendment prohibits imposing the death penalty on a twenty-one-year-old person with an undeveloped brain.
• CLAIM 17: Uncertainty and lack of necessary safeguards surrounding the method of execution creates an unacceptable risk of severe and unnecessary suffering in violation of the Eighth Amendment; consequently, should the government at some point set an execution date, it should take basic steps to ensure that the execution is humane.
• CLAIM 18: Judge Gergel presiding over Dylann’s case because he “really wants to” violated Dylann’s Due Process right to an impartial procedure for assigning a judge, and trial counsel’s failure to object violated Dylann’s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

Documents claim that Roof’s trial counsel was ineffective saying the team misled him, at times even outright lying to him.

Lawyers said a new trial should be granted since Roof’s Fifth and Sixth amendment rights were allegedly violated.

As for the claims that Judge Richard Gergel was bias, Gergel replied in a court order denying Roof’s request.

“The Court has fully addressed the motion to recuse in its original order and finds no basis for reconsideration or additional proceedings based on Defendant’s original motion or the motion to reconsider. No new material facts have emerged to support the claims asserted in the original motion, no changes in the law have occurred, the original decision was not clearly erroneous, and the order would not produce manifest injustice. Consequently, the motion to reconsider and to conduct additional proceedings before an out of state judge is denied.”
Richard M. Gergel

The Supreme Court rejected Roof’s previous appeal to overturn his sentence and conviction in 2022.

On June 17, 2015, Roof entered Emanuel AME Church, a predominantly Black church, where he attended a bible study for about 45 minutes before opening fire during prayer, trial testimony revealed.

The nine people killed in the massacre include Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, who was the church’s pastor and a South Carolina state senator, Cynthia Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson.

Five other individuals survived, including Felecia Sanders, the mother of Tywanza Sanders, her 5-year-old granddaughter, and Polly Sheppard.

Jennifer Pinckney, the wife of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and their daughter, 6-year-old Malana, were in another room across the hall at the time of the shooting.

Read the full filing below.