WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof, who challenged his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation.
Roof had asked the court to decide how to handle disputes over mental illness-related evidence between capital defendants and their attorneys. The justices did not comment Tuesday in turning away the appeal.
During the sentencing phase of his death penalty trial, Roof fired his legal team and opted to represent himself. This move, his appellate attorneys have written, successfully prevented jurors from hearing evidence about his mental health, “under the delusion” that “he would be rescued from prison by white-nationalists — but only, bizarrely, if he kept his mental-impairments out of the public record.”
Roof made his decision, his team has argued, “after the district court told him that counsel could introduce evidence depicting him as mentally ill over his objection.”
A panel of appellate judges had previously upheld his conviction and death sentence.
Roof shot participants at a Bible study session at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in June of 2015. He was captured in North Carolina the next day.
The victims in the shooting were the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel L. Simmons Sr., Myra Thompson and The Senator Clementa C. Pinckney, who was also the pastor of Mother Emanuel.
Roof, a white supremacist, wrote repeatedly about his beliefs before the killings and afterward in both jail and prison. Roof had planned and prepared for the mass shooting by doing things like buying a gun, having target practice in his backyard, researching and studying racist websites, and driving to the church several times in the months leading up to the shooting. He also gave a lengthy confession to the crime to federal investigators and has been unrepentant for his actions.
Roof, 28, is on federal death row at a maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. He can still pursue other appeals.