Court screens jurors for Charleston Church shooting trial

Jardine Malado Tuesday, September 27, 2016

The jury selection for the federal trial of Charleston church shooter Dylan Roof started on Monday with the appearance of potential jurors at the federal courthouse in Charleston, South Carolina.

Roof, 22, is facing 33 federal charges including hate crimes and obstruction of religion for the shooting of nine black parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in June 2015.

Police lead suspected shooter Dylann Roof into the courthouse in Shelby, North Carolina, U.S. June 18, 2015. | REUTERS/Jason Miczek/File Photo

Twelve jurors and six alternates will be picked from the 3,000 people who were summoned from several counties this summer. The trial is set to begin in November.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel said that the jurors will not be sequestered but their hotel room will be paid for by the court. Gergel acknowledged that the case has been widely publicized but he asked the potential jurors not to research the case or talk to anybody about it.

Roof's trial will be divided into two phases. The first phase is to establish his guilt. If found guilty, the second phase will determine whether he should be sentenced with life imprisonment or the death penalty.

The attorney for the defendant has previously stated that Roof is willing to plead guilty if prosecutors would not seek the death penalty. U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch insisted on the death penalty because of "the nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm."

Miller Shealy, an attorney who teaches at the Charleston School of Law, said that the task of finding a jury that will rule against the death penalty for Roof could prove challenging for the defense.

"You're trying to apply a little common sense and the best social science and psychology you can get to determine how you can pick a jury that is as non-lethal as possible," he said. "The government is trying to pick a jury that actually will give the death penalty based on the facts and the circumstances," Miller added.

The attorneys will be presented with 70 qualified jurors from a pool of 700, which were screened from an original figure of 3,000. The lawyers will be able to use strikes to dismiss the jurors they dislike.