Yesterday, Dylan Roof appealed his federal convictions and death sentence in the 2015 massacre of nine black church members in South Carolina, arguing that he was mentally ill when he represented himself at his capital trial (Associated Press News).
One of Roof’s lawyer’s main arguments was that the U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel should not have allowed Roof to represent himself during the penalty phase of his trial because he was a 22-year-old ninth-grade dropout “who believed his sentence didn’t matter because white nationalists would free him from prison after an impending race war (Associated Press News).”
Back in 2015 Roof, then 21-years-old, had multiple online photos of himself posing with the Confederate flag and weapon. Natalie Allison, a reporter for the state politics for @Tennessean / @USATODAY network in North Carolinian found something alarming. She noticed an increase in Confederate license plates in Tennessee after the church shooting.
James Patterson, commander of the Tennessee Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said he suspects the increase in motorists ordering the plate can be attributed to the organization’s focus on promoting the initiative amid “all the anti-Confederate rhetoric that’s been going on” surrounding monuments and flags in public spaces (Tennessee).
Supporting the Confederate flag has continued to split the minds of others unfolding nationwide in 2015, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam called for change to some southern states. Following the shooting, Haslam told reporters he supported discontinuing the Tennessee license plates featuring the flag.
Sen. Sara Kyle, D-Memphis introduced the bill, while Haslam step aware from the opposition. “He said the right thing, but there wasn’t any effort from him or his administration to support my legislation,” Kyle said. “As a matter of fact, I couldn’t even get it heard. There was no interest in my bill being heard at the time.” She described the SCV license plates as “symbols of hate” and said she would reintroduce the bill next session (Tennessee).
So although, Roof believed his sentence didn’t matter because white nationalists would free him from prison after an impending race war, five years later has shown they have not. In his appeal about being mentally unstable during the time is injustice.
He wrote a manifesto before the shooting detailing his grievances with America and his thoughts on race. After the shooting he wrote an additional manifesto that was found inside his cell and taken as contraband (The Last Rhodesian). The first describing the intent to murder and the second describing the aftermath.
White Supremacists have similar characteristics such as; machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism. Machiavellianism is a tendency to manipulate other people for one’s own gain (Live Science).
Overall, Roof shouldn’t be appealed of his death penalty charge. He killed in terms of hate. John Cheng, a professor of Asian and Asian-American studies at Binghamton University in New York, told Live Science in an email. “As beliefs, they are the products of individual and collective psychology. In other words, people have a way of believing what they want to believe.”
And that is exactly true. Roof can believe his was mentally ill. But, I find it hard to believe the jury will.
Jasmine's Blog 
I feel like that’s a common problem with most of these shooters and killers. They have the mentality of “I can just claim I’m mentally ill and can get away with my crimes.” And hopefully the jury sees right through that and gives this man the right punishment for his killings.
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I have never understood how the U.S. government allows, for all intent and purpose, a defeated country’s flag (the Confederate States of America) to fly. People could argue that just flying that flag in an act of treason.
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