In this picture of the video uplink from the detention center to the courtroom, Dylann Roof appears in the centralized bond hearing court.
Grace Beahm-Pool, Getty Images
- The death sentence for Dylann Roof is upheld.
- He was convicted of murdering nine black men in Charleston’s mother, Emmanuel African Methodist Church.
- However, US President Joe Biden suspended the federal execution.
The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the death sentence against Dylann Roof on Wednesday. The white gunman killed nine black believers in a church in South Carolina in 2015.
On June 17, 2015, Roof holding a 0.45 caliber pistol, fired at the historic Emanuel Anglican Church of the African Methodist Church in Charleston, firing 77 rounds of ammunition.
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Roof was 21 years old, “murdered African Americans during their Bible study and worship in their church. They welcomed him. He massacred them,” read the court’s ruling in part.
“His explicit intention to do this is not only to intimidate his direct victims… but to hear as many people as possible about the mass murders.”
Roof, 27, will not face the risk of execution in the short term because the administration of US President Joe Biden has suspended federal executions.
Racism manifesto
As stated in the racist manifesto, Ruf’s goal is to “incitate racial divisions and conflicts” throughout the country.
“There is no cold record or careful analysis of regulations and precedents that can capture the horror of everything the roof does. His crimes qualify him for the harshest punishment that a just society can impose,” the ruling read.
Nathan Williams, one of the chief prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office of South Carolina in charge of the case, stated that the Emanuel Mother Church massacre was “not only one of the worst events in South Carolina’s history. It is also one of the worst events in our country’s history.”
Roof was sentenced in early 2017 but did not express regret or apologize.
His lawyer appealed the sentence on the grounds that Roof should not represent himself in the trial—an argument that failed to convince the Court of Appeal.
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