SC federal prosecutor who tried Dylann Roof, cockfights and killers enters private practice

A South Carolina federal prosecutor who helped convince a jury to give Dylann Roof the death penalty for the 2015 mass murder of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston has gone into solo private practice.

Nathan “Nate” Williams, 48, whose career spans 24 years as a state and South Carolina federal prosecutor, is setting up shop in Mount Pleasant near Charleston and will focus on white-collar criminal defense work.

“Federal prosecutors tend to seek out a challenge,” said Williams, who is looking forward to being on the other side of the courtroom. “My job had gotten to a point where I didn’t think it could get much better. You don’t want to stay too long.”

For the last 13 years, Williams had been one of about 50 prosecutors who worked with federal agencies — including the FBI, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration — to prosecute federal crimes in South Carolina.

Before that, he worked about 10 years as a state prosecutor in Michigan and in South Carolina’s 9th Judicial Circuit.

One of Williams’ first major cases as a federal prosecutor was the 2010 two-week trial of the leaders of a clandestine cockfighting ring in Swansea, where, for 18 years, nearly 20,000 roosters fought to their deaths as illegal audiences wagered money on who would win.

The fighting was documented by an undercover agent who wore a miniature concealed video camera. The tapes were played at trial. More than 20 people were found guilty or pleaded guilty in that case.

“It was a look at a complex underbelly of a certain part of society that I don’t think usually gets the the kind of exposure you usually see on federal trials,” Williams said.

He also was part of a prosecution team that sought and won the death penalty against Brandon Council, who in 2019 was convicted of the double 2017 murder of two CresCom bank employees in Conway

Williams’ best-known case was being a part of the U.S. Department of Justice team that prosecuted Roof in 2016 and 2017, a team that secured the death penalty for Roof’s killings of nine Black parishioners of Mother Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston.

Roof, then a 21-year-old white supremacist from Columbia, had become radicalized by visiting internet racist sites, evidence showed. He acted alone.

In that case, Williams gave the opening argument in the death penalty phase of Roof’s trial.

He told the jury that Roof deserved to die because of the number of people he killed, his racist motives, the planning he put into the slayings, the emotional toll on friends and relatives and Roof’s utter lack of remorse.

”They justify the most significant penalty available to you,” Williams said of those factors. “He shot (87-year-old) Susie Jackson, the most vulnerable among them, the most number of times.”

Nathan Williams enters private practice

As an assistant U.S. attorney, Williams tried a mix of white-collar and violent crime cases.

In his most recent job, he supervised all federal criminal cases statewide.

Debbie Barbier, a Columbia lawyer and former federal prosecutor who tried the cockfighting case with Williams, said, “Nathan’s departure from the U.S. Attorney’s Office is a huge loss to the government. He is a skilled and seasoned trial lawyer; a natural leader and a committed advocate for justice.”

In the 9th Circuit solicitor’s job that Williams held before becoming a federal prosecutor, current Solicitor Scarlett Wilson described him “unflappable, committed, thorough and organized.”

Mark Moore, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Columbia, said that the change from trying to get convictions to helping people who face being accused of crimes has been gratifying.

“When you leave the government, you recognize how much power and authority you had,” Moore said. “On this side of fence, you have your wits, and you have your authority to persuade, and you have to rely on skills rather than authority. It is rewarding to use your skills to help someone.”

Winning an acquittal in a federal trial of a client accused of a crime was “far more meaningful” than “any conviction I ever got because I knew that I represented a client who had not committed a crime,” Moore said.

Williams, a native of Michigan, is a graduate of University of Detroit Mercy Law School and Hope College, a private Christian liberal arts college in western Michigan. After college, he became a state prosecutor in Michigan and moved to South Carolina to attend classes at the Hollings Advocacy Center on the University of South Carolina campus.

“I got down here as quick as I could,” Williams quipped.

Williams’ wife, Jennifer, also is a lawyer but focuses on matters such as estates, trusts, business formations and real estate, he said.

Williams said he’ll miss being a prosecutor, an experience he called “humbling and incredibly motivating.’’

But, he said, private defense attorneys fill a need to provide effective representation in a way “that ensures fairness.”

“I hope I can now deliver that sense to my clients in private practice,” he said.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of a Charleston church. The correct name is Mother Emanuel AME Church.

This story was originally published March 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM.