Supreme Court denies appeal of Dylann Roof, sentenced to death for murders at SC Black church

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The Supreme Court has denied an appeal made by mass murderer Dylann Roof, who was convicted of killing nine people in a shooting at a Black church in 2015.

The court did not comment on the case in dismissing it.

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Roof was seeking a Supreme Court decision on handling disputes surrounding his mental health.

Roof previously demanded evidence of his mental health be left out of his trial and fired his legal representation during sentencing.

In 2017, Roof became the first person in the U.S. sentenced to death for a federal hate crime. Authorities have said Roof opened fire during the closing prayer of a Bible study at the church, shooting into the crowd of those assembled.

He was 21 at the time of the massacre.

A federal appeals court last year upheld Roof’s conviction and death sentence for the racially-motivated slaying of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation, saying the legal record cannot even capture the “full horror” of what he did.

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In his appeal, Roof’s attorneys argued that he was wrongly allowed to represent himself during sentencing, a critical phase of his trial.

Roof successfully prevented jurors from hearing evidence about his mental health, “under the delusion,” his attorneys argued, that “he would be rescued from prison by White-nationalists — but only, bizarrely, if he kept his mental-impairments out of the public record.”

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Roof, 28, is currently being held under maximum security in a Terre Haute, Indiana prison. He is on federal death row and awaiting execution.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.