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Court Files Raise Question: Was Dylann Roof Competent to Defend Himself? - The New York Times

posted onJune 1, 2017
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Article snippet: CHARLESTON, S.C. — In early January, after a series of closed-court hearings, a federal judge in Charleston allowed Dylann S. Roof to represent himself as prosecutors sought his execution for a murderous 2015 rampage at a historic African-American church. Determined to block exposure of his mental health history, the 22-year-old white supremacist sidelined his expert defense team and presented no mitigating evidence. A jury took less than three hours to dispatch him to death row. But the information that Mr. Roof worked so hard to suppress has now become public, as Judge Richard M. Gergel of Federal District Court this month finished unsealing thousands of pages of psychiatric reports and transcripts from the November and January hearings. The documents provide, for the first time, a multidimensional portrait of a withdrawn but strikingly intelligent misfit whose tastes ran to Dostoyevsky, classical music and NPR but who said his “dream job” would be working at an airport convenience store. He exhibited disturbingly introverted behavior from an early age — playing alone, never starting conversations — but received little treatment for what defense experts later concluded was autism and severe social anxiety, with precursor symptoms of psychosis. Although Mr. Roof’s guilt was never in doubt, his trial left largely unanswered how an awkward adolescent had progressed from reclusive consumer of internet hate to ruthless and remorseless jihadist (his word). The eviden... Link to the full article to read more

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