Updated

The death penalty trial for a white man who said he wanted to start a race war by killing black people in their South Carolina church is set to begin.

Jury selection and opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday in Dylann Roof's federal death penalty trial in Charleston.

The city is already bruised by a former police officer's racially charged murder trial that ended in a hung jury Monday.

But Roof's trial shouldn't be so hard fought. His lawyers have offered for Roof to plead guilty several times if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.

Authorities say Roof killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in June 2015 after spending an hour with them in Bible study.