Dylann Roof wants an entire appellate court to reconsider a decision to recuse itself from hearing his case, as the appeal of his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation winds its way through the judicial system.
Last week, Roof’s attorneys made that request of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, writing that the judges who opted to sit out his case should reinstate themselves to consider his petition for a new hearing before the court.
Without that move, or changing a court rule prohibiting judges visiting from other circuits from considering such requests, Roof’s lawyers wrote, “no judges exist to consider” his rehearing petition, depriving him of “a critical level of appellate review.”
All of the judges from the 4th Circuit, which covers South Carolina, have recused themselves from hearing Roof’s case. No explicit reason was given in the court’s notice of that move in May, although one of the judges, Jay Richardson, prosecuted Roof’s case as an assistant U.S. attorney in 2017, when 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 Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, raining down dozens of bullets on those assembled. He was 21 at the time.