State prosecutors indicated on Thursday in court documents that they will seek the death penalty for Dylann S. Roof, who is charged with the racially motivated murders of nine people in a church in Charleston, S.C.
After the June 17 massacre of black ministers and parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, it emerged that the suspect, Mr. Roof, 21, who is white, had expressed white supremacist views and hatred of black people.
Mr. Roof has been indicted twice for the killings, in state court and in federal court, and each of those cases carries a possible death sentence. Until the court filing on Thursday by Scarlett A. Wilson, the South Carolina state solicitor overseeing the case, neither set of prosecutors had said publicly whether they would seek to have him executed, but state officials, including Gov. Nikki R. Haley, have said emphatically that the case warranted the death penalty.
The documents said state prosecutors would pursue the death penalty because more than two people were killed, and that others’ lives were put at risk. read more
