Just why is DOJ still uncertain about seeking death penalty against Charleston mass murderer Dylann Roof?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by this press report headlined "With death penalty decision uncertain, judge delays Dylann Roof’s federal trial."  Here are the details:

A federal judge on Thursday delayed Dylann Roof’s trial in the deadly attack on Emanuel AME Church because prosecutors still have not decided whether to seek execution. Roof could face the death penalty on nine of his 33 charges in federal court, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson said the decision by Washington-based Justice Department officials could take another two months.

Such delays in high-profile federal cases are typical.  After the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013, it took then-Attorney General Eric Holder more than nine months to announce he would seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.  Nearly eight months have passed since Roof’s arrest.  Attorneys for the 21-year-old Eastover resident already have said he would plead guilty if the government opts against capital punishment.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel urged prosecutors during a hearing Thursday in downtown Charleston to inform him promptly of any development so a trial date can be set.  “There are obviously important and alternate paths to go here based on that decision,” the judge said.

Roof’s federal charges in the June 17 shooting of nine black parishioners at the Calhoun Street church include civil rights violations. Officials have called the shooting a hate crime.  Because of the delays in the federal case, Roof is likely to be tried first in state court in July.  State prosecutors already have said they would pursue the death penalty. Thursday’s hearing in federal court served as a chance for Roof’s defense team and prosecutors to update Gergel on the status of the case. Roof, who remains at Charleston County’s jail, was not there....

Evidence in the cases continues to flow at a steady clip.  Roof’s defense team, led by attorney David Bruck, last month got a hard drive full of data, and the FBI has since authored more reports, Richardson said.

While Richardson said the government would be ready for a trial soon, Bruck said his ability to defend his client depends on the death penalty decision.  A trial could be avoided, he said, if Roof pleads guilty and gets life in prison.

Roof already had waived his right to a speedy trial because his lawyers need time to review “vast amounts” of evidence to defend him in a death penalty trial, Bruck said. “He has offered to plead guilty,” said Bruck, who also represented Tsarnaev in the Boston trial. “Everybody knows that. That has been the position since the first day of this case. The only issue is the government’s decision to accept that plea.”

Federal prosecutors have said that they planned to send their case to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s office in December. The Justice Department’s Review Committee on Capital Cases typically makes a recommendation to Lynch within 90 days.  Though two representatives of the department’s Civil Rights Division, which typically leads such prosecutions, attended Thursday’s hearing, Richardson answered the judge’s questions. The prosecutor said that many people must give input and express opinions before a decision is made. “We feel like we are much closer,” he said.

I am generally disinclined to urge a prosecutorial charging decision should be rushed.  But I am mystified why and ultimately troubled by the feds needing a year to decide whether to seek a capital charge in a case where there seems to be little doubt about essential offense facts.  Especially with guilt not in question, with a large number of sympathetic victims, and with the offender's ugly motive making the indisputably a hate crime conparable to a form of domestic terrorism, I do not really understand why more than eight weeks, let alone eight months, are needed to decide whether to pursue a capital charge here.  

Of particular significance, if a capital charge was justified against against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose crime slaughtered many fewer individuals and whose was arguably less culpabale than co-conspirator older brother, I have a had time figuring out why a capital charge against Dylann Roof would not be justified.  Indeed, at a time when so many are understandably concerned with whether modern criminal justice systems understand that "black lives matter ," I fear that any decision not to seek a capital charge in this case would create the impression that the nine black lives extinguished in Charleston do not matter as much as just three non-black lives extinguished in Boston.