A federal judge set November 7 as the day to start selecting jurors for Dylann Roof’s federal trial. His trial could begin several weeks after that, Timereports.
Roof is accused in the massacre of nine African-American churchgoers approximately one year ago at Emanuel AME Church, in Charleston, South Carolina. Prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty for Roof, the New York Timesreports. (Federal District Court Judge Richard M. Gergel’s decision to hold the trial in November means a timeline for the state trial is still in limbo, according to the Times.)
Last year, University of Houston professor Gerald Hornespoke with Pacific Standard about the United States’ history of systemic racism, and how that history helped to produce people like Roof:
In the context of [the South Carolina shooting], this will be spun as a lone range gunman, who just sort of fell from the sky. It had nothing to do with the history or the environment; he’s crazy. Just saying somebody is crazy and deranged isn’t sufficient. What kind of environment were they brought up in? What was the soil from which they sprung?
In announcing the November trial, Gergel also said that up to 1,500 potential jurors could be screened for federal court.
