CHARLESTON, S.C. _ In a scathing letter from Dylann Roof to federal prosecutors before his death penalty trial last winter, the now-convicted Charleston church killer charged his lawyers were lying to him and trying to psychologically manipulate him.
"Throughout my case they have used scare tactics, threats, manipulation and outright lies in order to further their own, not my, agenda," Roof wrote in his handwritten three-page letter, addressed to "Prosecution" at the U.S. attorney's office in Charleston.
"I am writing this letter to let you know that what my lawyers are planning to say in my defense is a lie and will be said without my consent or permission," Roof wrote in early November.
Roof's mental state, and his relations with his court-appointed lawyers, were two themes discussed speculatively at his death penalty trial by journalists and other onlookers. But court hearings surrounding these issues were held out of public view. Details and records concerning those issues only began being released Tuesday.
In January, Roof, 23, an avowed white supremacist from the Columbia area, was sentenced to death by a federal jury for the hate crime killings of nine African-Americans at a historic Charleston downtown church. The killings of nine innocents took place at Mother Emanuel AME church during a Wednesday night Bible study and shocked the state, nation and world.
Roof's lawyers wanted to present evidence at trial showing Roof suffered from severe mental illness that led him to obsess over killing black people. Their goal was to convince at least one person of the death penalty jury that Roof was psychologically ill and win him a life sentence.
But Roof, claiming he had a right to represent himself, overruled his lawyers and kept all evidence about possible harmful mental conditions away from the jury.
"I was lied to repeatedly in order to get me to speak to mental health experts," Roof wrote in early November as his lawyers were mountain a behind-the-scenes effort to get mental health evidence into evidence in the then-upcoming trial. "I was told that I needed to talk to them in order to get medicine for a thyroid condition."
Roof continued, "This is the sneakiest group of people I have ever met, and words cant (sic) express how slick they are in their lies."
Among Roof's lawyers was David Bruck, a nationally recognized death penalty lawyer known for his excellence in capital punishment cases and life-long crusade to overturn death penalty convictions.
His lawyers, Roof said, "are extremely moralistic about the death penalty, but unfortunately when it comes to lying they do not have any morals at all."
Roof's letter was one of numerous exhibits and records released Tuesday by U.S. Judge Richard Gergel, who presided over Roof's federal death penalty trial.
On Tuesday, Gergel overrode objections by Roof and began unsealing some, but not all of the previously sealed records, in his federal case.
In a 15-page order issued midday Tuesday, Gergel wrote he was unsealing more than 70 previously sealed documents, ordered some others be kept sealed and said he was mulling how redact, or censor, still other records.
Gergel's order comes one day after Roof, 23, a white supremacist from the Columbia area, pleaded guilty to nine counts of murder in state court in the 2015 execution-style killings of nine African-Americans at a historic downtown Charleston church.
Because of those guilty pleas in state court, and because the federal hate crimes case against Roof was concluded in January, Gergel said on Tuesday he could begin releasing the previously sealed material.
Not all of the to-be-opened sealed records were immediately available on a federal court records database on Tuesday afternoon.
In his order, Gergel noted that Roof had objected to unsealing records concerning his mental competency to stand trial "because he did not want his attorneys to present evidence suggesting that he is mentally incompetent."
During the death penalty phase of Roof's trial, he represented himself in order to keep his attorneys from introducing evidence and psychiatric reports indicating he was suffering from severe mental illness that caused delusions and stopped him from thinking rationally about certain matters.
Before and during Roof's trial, which finished in January, Gergel held closed hearings about Roof's mental state. During those hearings, from which the public was denied access, opposing evidence was presented about Roof's mental health.
In his order, Gergel noted that federal prosecutors had argued all documents in the case be unsealed. Lawyers for Roof said that while many documents could be unsealed, 33 others should always remain nonpublic, and others could be opened after they were redacted for privacy or other reasons.
But Gergel wrote, "There is a manifest public interest in the evidence supporting the judicial determination that a capital defendant, now sentenced to death, was in fact competent to stand trial."
Gergel wrote he understood Roof's wishes to keep this material secret "but Defendant's wishes are entitled to no weight."
Gergel did agree to keep certain details about Roof's family's personal and medical history because his family members, who took no part in his crime, had a significant "privacy interest" to be protected.
However, Gergel said he would unseal some descriptions of Roof's broad "social interactions with family members and friends."
Gergel also unleased four videos of family members meeting with Roof in the Charleston County jail.
