Updated Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017, 2:51 p.m. EDT: How long did it take the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to deny Dylann Roof’s motion to replace his lawyers on account of their ethnic backgrounds?
Less than 24 hours, and with just 11 words.
ABC News reports that federal judges didn’t even bother to provide a rationale in denying Roof’s request, simply writing, “The court denies the motion for substitution of counsel on appeal.”
And that is that on that.
Earlier:
In today’s episode of “White Supremacy Knows No Bounds,” Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who murdered nine black parishioners at a Charleston, S.C., church in 2015, is seeking to fire his two court-appointed attorneys because they aren’t white.
Roof is currently appealing his murder and federal hate crimes conviction, for which he’s received the death penalty. The State reports that Roof filed a hand-written request to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Monday to have his attorneys replaced.
From The State:
“My two currently appointed attorneys, Alexandra Yates and Sapna Mirchandani, are Jewish and Indian, respectively. It is therefore quite literally impossible that they and I could have the same interests relating to my case,” Roof explained in his motion.
“Trust is a vital component in an attorney client relationship, and is important to the effectiveness of the defense,” he said. “Because of my political views, which are arguably religious, it will be impossible for me to trust two attorneys that are my political and biological enemies.”
In the motion, Roof also cited problems with the man who defended him in his federal trial, David Bruck, because of his Jewish heritage. According to BuzzFeed News, Bruck—also a court-appointed lawyer—is known for his experience in capital-murder cases.
This didn’t stop Roof, a 23-year-old unemployed high school dropout and paragon of Aryan excellence, from taking the lead in the penalty phase of his trial. Roof even threatened to kill Bruck if he ever got out of jail.
“His ethnicity was a constant source of conflict, even with my constant efforts to look past it,” Roof wrote in his motion.
Read more at the New York Post and BuzzFeed News.