Charleston shooting suspect Dylann Roof deemed competent to stand trial

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last updated 28 November 2016

A judge ruled Friday that Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old white man accused of killing nine people in a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, last year, is mentally fit to stand trial. "After carefully considering the record before the Court, the relevant legal standards, and the arguments of counsel, the Court now finds and concludes that the Defendant is competent to stand trial," wrote Judge Richard Gergel.

Roof has been indicted on 33 counts for the murderous attack, which he is believed to have planned in an effort to increase racial tensions in America. Read the judge's full ruling below. Bonnie Kristian

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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