Charleston killer Dylann Roof’s death penalty upheld by federal appeals court
The death penalty for Dylann Roof, a Columbia man who killed nine African-Americans at a Charleston church in 2015, has been unanimously upheld by a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“His crimes qualify him for the harshest penalty that a just society can impose,” the judges wrote.
Roof was sentenced to death in January 2017 by a federal jury in Charleston. Federal Judge Richard Gergel presided.
Overwhelming evidence at Roof’s trial, including his own writings, showed he is a white supremacist who was radicalized by far-right racist internet sites. He acted alone and had planned the killings at Emanuel AME Church over a span of several months. His goal, he wrote, was to start a race war.
Mental illness was a key issue in Roof’s appeals, but the judges found him competent to stand trial and to represent himself, which he did at times during the trial.
The crime made news around the world and resulted in the removal of the Confederate flag from State House grounds in Columbia.
At the end of the 149-page opinion, the judges summed up the case:
“Dylann Roof murdered African Americans at their church, during their Bible-study and worship. They had welcomed him. He slaughtered them. He did so 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.
“He used the internet to plan his attack and, using his crimes as a catalyst, intended to foment racial division and strife across America. He wanted the widest possible publicity for his atrocities, and, to that end, he purposefully left one person alive in the church ‘to tell the story.’”
“When apprehended, he frankly confessed, with barely a hint of remorse. No cold record or careful parsing of statutes and precedents can capture the full horror of what Roof did.
“His crimes qualify him for the harshest penalty that a just society can impose. We have reached that conclusion not as a product of emotion but through a thorough analytical process, which we have endeavored to detail here.
In this, we have followed the example of the trial judge, who managed this difficult case with skill and compassion for all concerned, including Roof himself.”
(This story will be updated)
