Attorneys for Dylann Roof file motion for new federal trial, attempt to throw out death penalty
"Attorneys for convicted Emanuel AME Church shooter Dylann Roof took aim at his death penalty in a motion for a new federal trial.
With a looming deadline, attorneys David Bruck, Kimberly Stevens and Emily Paavola filed the motion Friday in U.S. District Court in Charleston. It seeks to throw out Roof's death sentence in favor of life in prison without the possibility of release by targeting the charges eligible for capital punishment.
Of Roof's 33 federal counts, 18 were eligible for the death penalty. He had previously offered to plead guilty in return for a life sentence.
The attorneys raised two issues in the filing.
First, they argued that Roof's actions didn't constitute interstate commerce because the attack was planned and executed completely within South Carolina.
The attorneys also argued that two charges — hate crime and obstructing persons in the free exercise of religious belief — were not "crimes of violence" because "they do not require the use or threat of use of 'violent physical force.'"..."
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/...cle_90c65cae-efe8-11e6-9d08-4373f42bfa83.html
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Dylann Roof's attorneys motion for new trial, seek to throw out death sentence
"...Attorney David Bruck calls into question two issues regarding the other convictions, both of which were questioned and overruled in pretrial motions last year.
First, Bruck questions whether Roof using the internet before the attack, the interstate highway system after the attack, as well as making use of a handgun and ammunition and other items made out of state constitute a violation of interstate commerce....
Bruck also rekindled his earlier argument whether Roof's crime involved the use of violent force as established by federal hate crime law.
"This is not the first time – nor will it be the last – in which the categorical
approach has required a finding that seems at odds with the facts of the case: how could this crime not be a crime of violence? Courts have recognized the cognitive dissonance that results from the application of the law in this manner," he writes.
Bruck notes there is some vagueness in the law that was not addressed by the court during the Roof trial. But he asks for a delay in the court's decision to grant a new trial until the Supreme Court takes up a similar question on vagueness in Sessions (formerly Lynch) v. Dimaya.
In that case, the Court is asked to determine whether the Immigration and Nationality Act's guidelines concerning a person's removal from the U.S. is unconstitutionally vague..."
http://abcnews4.com/news/local/dyla...or-new-trial-seek-to-throw-out-death-sentence
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