Roof won’t use mental health experts to try to save his life

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The same jury that convicted him Thursday on 33 charges including hate crime and obstruction of religion will decide if Roof is sentenced to life in prison without parole or death for the massacre on June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston.

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In his handwritten note, he said: “I will not be calling mental health experts or presenting mental health evidence.”

Roof’s lawyers unsuccessfully tried to stop him from being his own lawyer, saying he was a high-school dropout and that they feared Roof fired them because he was afraid the attorneys would present evidence that would embarrass him and his family when trying to save his life.

Prosecutors are expected to present evidence showing that Roof picked his victims because of their race, killed them to incite more violence, showed no remorse and killed three particularly vulnerable people who were 70 years old or older, according to court papers.

State prosecutors have also said they will seek the death penalty against Roof in a separate trial on nine murder charges, likely to begin sometime next year.

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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jeffrey-collins .

Jeffrey Collins, The Associated Press