"The facts of this case are indisputably grave," Roof's defense team stated in its motion to strike the death penalty. "But if, as we contend here, the FDPA [Federal Death Penalty Act] is unconstitutional, no one can be lawfully sentenced to death or executed under it, no matter what his crimes."
Roof's lawyers wrote that they sought to raise "only questions related to the death penalty" stemming from the "government's decision to seek the defendant's execution rather than accepting his proffered pleas of guilty and willingness to accept multiple sentences of life imprisonment without possibility of release."
His lawyers said that if federal prosecutors removed the death penalty, "Mr. Roof will withdraw this motion and plead guilty as charged to all counts in the indictment."
They outlined several reasons against the federal death penalty calling it "unconstitutional punishment" and that such "arbitrary, cruel and unusual punishment" violated both the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.