It has been six years since white-supremacist Dylan Roof walked into the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina and murdered nine members during the final prayer of a Bible study. All the victims were Black.
Roof was charged with a federal hate crime. He told jurors "I still feel like I had to do it," and then served as his own attorney during his sentencing.
In 2017, he pled guilty to state murder charges. Apparently, Roof believed that he'd be rescued by white supremacists.
Since then, Roof has been awaiting execution while appeals wound their way through the court system. The basis of his appeals was that he should not have been declared competent to represent himself in court.
All the justices in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recused themselves from the case; one had been a prosecutor. Three judges from other districts stood in for them. They unanimously said that Roof deserved the sentence he got.
“Dylann Roof murdered African Americans at their church ... with the express intent of terrorizing not just his immediate victims at the historically important Mother Emanuel Church, but as many similar people as would hear of the mass murder,” the ruling read. "His crimes qualify him for the harshest penalty that a just society can impose."
This isn't the end of the road for Roof's appeals, particularly because the Biden administration isn't in favor of the death penalty.
However, it's a significant setback for anyone who thinks Roof is not beyond saving.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/25/dylann-roof-death-penalty-charleston-506900
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