Sunday 18 December 2016

Dylann Roof chooses not to consider his mental health in trial because ‘psychology is a Jewish invention’

Dylann Roof

Roof, 22, was found guilty this week of the racist massacre of nine black worshippers as they prayed in a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Now, his trial is moving on to consider whether or not he should be given the death penalty.

According to a motion he filed, handwritten, the white supremacist killer said he wouldn’t be calling on mental health experts to testify because he doesn’t believe in psychology.

‘It is a Jewish invention and does nothing but invent diseases and tell people they have problems when they don’t,’ he wrote separately in a journal.

He also fired his entire legal team and is now going to act as his own lawyer during the death penalty phase of his trial, which starts on January 3.

Roof opened fire on an historic African-American church, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, on June 17, 2015.

The same jury that convicted Roof of 33 charges related to the massacre – including hate crime and obstruction of religion – will soon decide if he is sentenced to life in prison without parole, or death.

In his handwritten note, he said: ‘I will not be calling mental health experts or presenting mental health evidence.’

Roof’s lawyers unsuccessfully tried to stop him from acting as his own lawyer, warning that he was a high-school dropout and was therefore not best placed to present his own mitigation.

They reportedly feared Roof fired them because he was afraid that embarrassing details relating to himself and his family would be presented in court as evidence, even though it would have been done so in an attempt to spare him a death sentence.

Prosecutors are expected to present evidence showing that Roof chose his victims because of their race and killed them to incite more violence, according to court papers.

They will also attempt to demonstrate that he has shown no remorse, and that amongst the nine victims were three particularly vulnerable people who were 70 years old or older.

State prosecutors have also said that they will seek the death penalty against Roof in a separate trial on nine murder charges, which is likely to begin sometime next year.


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