White Supremacist Church Shooter Dylann Roof Barred From Firing Jewish Lawyer
Dylann Roof Image by Getty Images
By Aiden Pink September 19, 2017
The white supremacist who was convicted of shooting nine people in a South Carolina church as part of his plan to start a “race war” has been barred by a federal appeals court from firing his Jewish and Indian-American lawyers.
Dylann Roof filed a hand-written motion to the court from his federal prison, arguing that “Because of my political views, which are arguably religious, it will be impossible for me to trust two attorneys that are my political and biological enemies.”
But the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied his motion on Tuesday. Its entire statement was 11 words: “The court denies the motion for substitution of counsel on appeal.”
Roof is awaiting the death penalty (pending the end of his appeals) following his 2015 conviction on dozens of counts. His lawyer during his original trial was also Jewish, which Roof complained about in his filing, saying that his “ethnicity was a constant source of conflict even with my constant efforts to look past it.”
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
