Dylann Roof says that he’s not going to present mental health evidence during the penalty phase of his trial.
Roof, 22, was found guilty of a racially-motivated massacre of nine black worshippers as they prayed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17th, 2015.
A federal jury found Roof guilty of all 33 counts, with jurors taking less than two hours to reach their verdict.
These jurors will now decide in the next phase of the trial starting on January 3rd whether he will face the death penalty or life in prison.
According to a handwritten motion he filed, the white supremacist murderer said he wouldn’t be calling on mental health experts to testify because he doesn’t believe in psychology, The Guardian reports.
In a separate journal he wrote: “It is a Jewish invention and does nothing but invent diseases and tell people they have problems when they don’t.”
He has also decided to fire his entire legal team and will now act as his own lawyer during the next stage of the trial.
They tried to stop him doing so, warning that because he was a high-school dropout he would struggle to present his own case.
It’s also been claimed that Roof was afraid that his legal team would release embarrassing details about him and his family as evidence, despite the fact it was being used in an attempt to spare him a death sentence.
According to court papers, prosecutors are expected to present evidence that Roof chose his victims purely based on their race and killed them to incite violence.
The trial continues.
