CHARLESTON COUNTY, SC _ A federal judge ruled Friday that alleged Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof is mentally competent to stand trial.
Jury selection is expected to resume in federal court in Charleston next Monday, according to U.S. Judge Richard Gergel's order.
Roof's competency hearing was closed to the public despite pleas to open it from more than a half-dozen African-American survivors and relatives of victims of the June 2015 massacre at historic Mother Emanuel AME Church.
Gergel refused, saying that Roof's right to a fair trial and getting an impartial jury trumped those concerns. The hearings determined whether Roof could understand and participate in legal proceedings.
A federal indictment in the case alleges Roof, 22, a self-described white supremacist from the Columbia area, went to Charleston to kill African-Americans to "incite racial tensions across the nation." Roof killed nine people, including church pastor state Sen. Clementa Pinckney.
