Federal Appeals Court Upholds Convictions and Death Sentences for Dylann Roof

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has affirmed Dylann Roof​’s fed­er­al-court con­vic­tions and death sen­tences for the racial­ly moti­vat­ed mur­ders of nine parish­ioners in an his­toric Charleston, South Carolina African-American church in 2017.

In a 149-page deci­sion issued on August 25, 2021 by a spe­cial pan­el of judges assem­bled from out­side the cir­cuit, the fed­er­al appeals court unan­i­mous­ly reject­ed nine­teen issues raised by Roof’s appel­late lawyers. Those issues include mat­ters relat­ed to Roof’s men­tal com­pe­ten­cy, waiv­er of coun­sel, waiv­er of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, lim­i­ta­tions imposed on his stand-by coun­sel, the prosecution’s pre­sen­ta­tion of vic­tim-impact tes­ti­mo­ny beyond what is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly per­mit­ted, and a num­ber of chal­lenges to the appli­ca­tion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty statute in his case. 

“No cold record or care­ful pars­ing of statutes and prece­dents can cap­ture the full hor­ror of what Roof did,” the judges wrote in an unsigned opin­ion. ​“His crimes qual­i­fy him for the harsh­est penal­ty that a just soci­ety can impose.”

Judges Duane Benton of the Eighth Circuit, Kent A. Jordan of the Third Circuit, and Ronald Lee Gilman, a senior judge of the Sixth Circuit, sat by spe­cial des­ig­na­tion in the case after all of the judges of the Fourth Circuit recused them­selves from Roof’s appeal. The cir­cuit judges with­drew from the case to avoid any appear­ance of con­flict stem­ming from the fact that Jay Richardson, who pros­e­cut­ed Roof’s case while serv­ing as an assis­tant U.S. attor­ney, now serves as a judge on the circuit.

In oral argu­ment before the cir­cuit pan­el, Roof’s attor­neys had assert­ed that he suf­fered from racist delu­sions that pre­vent­ed him from ratio­nal­ly deter­min­ing whether to be rep­re­sent­ed by coun­sel at tri­al and in sen­tenc­ing. Roof was ​“clear­ly delu­sion­al,” appeal coun­sel Sapna Mirchandani told the court. He should not have been allowed to rep­re­sent him­self at sen­tenc­ing because, his attor­neys said, he was ​“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 was per­mit­ted to rep­re­sent him­self in the penal­ty phase of his tri­al, elect­ing to pro­ceed with­out coun­sel because he did not want his attor­neys to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that he has sev­er­al men­tal ill­ness­es, includ­ing schiz­o­phre­nia spec­trum dis­or­der, autism, anx­i­ety, and depression.

The appeals pan­el ruled that District Court Judge Richard Gergel did not com­mit clear error in find­ing Roof com­pe­tent to stand tri­al or in allow­ing him to rep­re­sent him­self in the penal­ty phase — the legal stan­dard nec­es­sary for revers­ing a tri­al court factfind­ing. After describ­ing the evi­dence pre­sent­ed by both sides dur­ing Roof’s com­pe­ten­cy hear­ings, the pan­el said that while ​“Roof’s defense team pre­sent­ed expert evi­dence dis­agree­ing with” the com­pe­ten­cy find­ings of the court-appoint­ed men­tal health expert, James C. Ballenger, the dis­trict court ​“was well with­in its dis­cre­tion” to rely upon Dr. Ballenger’s con­clu­sion that Roof was com­pe­tent. Given that com­pe­ten­cy find­ing, the appeals court said, Judge Gergel’s deci­sion per­mit­ting Roof to waive coun­sel also did not con­sti­tute clear error.

In response to the court’s rul­ing, attor­ney Andy Savage, who rep­re­sents three sur­vivors of the shoot­ing at Emanuel AME Church, as well as fam­i­ly mem­bers of the vic­tims, said his clients expect­ed the rul­ing, but were frus­trat­ed that Roof con­tin­ues not to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for his actions. ​“Every time he gets in the news­pa­per, he’s blam­ing some­one oth­er than him­self. While they want to have sym­pa­thy for him, it’s pret­ty hard to have sym­pa­thy for some­one who doesn’t acknowl­edge the respon­si­bil­i­ty,” Savage said. ​“I don’t think they have any joy that he’s a step clos­er to car­ry­ing out the will of the jury, but hope­ful­ly one day they’ll be able to live with­out this black cloud over them of what he’s doing, what he’s up to.”

The los­ing par­ty in a fed­er­al cap­i­tal direct appeal is enti­tled to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. That stage of appeal, know as a peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari, typ­i­cal­ly takes a year or more to resolve. If the Supreme Court declines to review the case, or agrees to review it but upholds the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, the case returns to the tri­al court for a new stage of appeal called habeas cor­pus. Habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ings in the dis­trict court, fol­lowed by appeals to the fed­er­al cir­cuit court and the U.S. Supreme Court, can take a decade or more.