Charleston County Magistrate James Gosnell Jr. sparked outrage Friday when he appealed for sympathy for the family of Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old self-professed racist who last week gunned down nine African Americans at prayer service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.
But the good news in this sad and disturbing story is that Gosnell will not oversee Roof's trial because circuit court judges, not magistrates, oversee criminal trials in South Carolina, according to the New York Daily News.
Gosnell on Friday raised eyebrows when he made the insensitive appeal in a courtroom packed with relatives of Roof's victims, whom he allegedly killed during a prayer service Wednesday at the historic black church, reports say.
“We have victims—nine of them," he lectured the court. "But we also have victims on the other side. We must find it in our heart at some point in time not only to help those that are victims but to also help his family as well.”
Gosnell is not new to controversy and insensitivity. He was reproached by the state Supreme Court for telling a black defendant in 2003, "There are four kinds of people in this world: black people, white people, rednecks, and n—gers.”
Read more at the New York Daily News.