Confessed Mass Killer May Not Be Competent to Stand Trial

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FILE - In this June 18, 2015, file photo, Charleston, S.C., shooting suspect Dylann Storm Roof, center, is escorted from the Sheby Police Department in Shelby, N.C. FBI director James Comey says Roof, the gunman in the Charleston church massacre should not have been allowed to purchase the gun used in the attack, and on July 10 attributed the problem to incomplete and inaccurate paperwork related to an arrest of Roof weeks before the shooting. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)
FILE – In this June 18, 2015, file photo, Charleston, S.C., shooting suspect Dylann Storm Roof, center, is escorted from the Sheby Police Department in Shelby, N.C. FBI director James Comey says Roof, the gunman in the Charleston church massacre should not have been allowed to purchase the gun used in the attack, and on July 10 attributed the problem to incomplete and inaccurate paperwork related to an arrest of Roof weeks before the shooting. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)

Newly unsealed court documents in the federal death penalty trial of Dylann Roof indicate the judge believes it’s possible the white man who confessed to, and is charged with gunning down nine black parishioners in Charleston may not be mentally competent to stand trial.

According to a defense motion unsealed Friday, U.S. Judge Richard Gergel has found “reasonable cause to believe” Roof may be “suffering from a mental disease or defect.”  Read full motion here.

Gergel ordered another competency exam for Roof this week, one day after halting jury selection because of the defense motion. He will hold a hearing Wednesday. Gergel plans to rule within days whether Roof is competent and, if so, begin jury selection for Roof’s trial Nov. 21.

While the defense motion was unsealed, much of it is redacted.

Roof’s attorneys want the hearing closed.

Some observers say the move could be a “stall tactic” to delay the proceeding until after the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Source: AP 

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