The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied an appeal from convicted mass murderer Dylann Roof, who sought to have his conviction reviewed.
Roof fatally shot nine members of a black South Carolina congregation during a Bible study in 2015.
Roof, who admitted to the racially motivated slayings, was convicted by a unanimous jury on 33 counts and sentenced to death in 2017. (RELATED: Justice Department Reaches $88 Million Settlement In Dylann Roof Massacre Case)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court rejects appeal from Dylann Roof of death sentence, conviction in 2015 racist slayings of 9 in Black South Carolina church pic.twitter.com/GdP0KXFyny
— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) October 11, 2022
Roof asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on ongoing disputes about his mental health after previously demanding his mental health be left out of his trial.
Lawyers for the mass shooter made the appeal after a federal appeals court upheld Roof’s conviction and death sentence in August. Roof’s defense attorneys claimed Roof was wrongly allowed to represent himself during sentencing after he managed to prevent jurors from hearing evidence about his mental health “under the delusion … he would be rescued from prison by White-nationalists — but only, bizarrely, if he kept his mental-impairments out of the public record,” his attorneys argued, according to Fox News.
Roof is currently on death row awaiting execution.