Lawyers say Roof suffered mental-health issues, hid it from court
Dylann Roof, the first person to be sentenced to death under the federal hate-crimes act, has appealed his conviction for the 2015 killing of nine black worshipers at a historic church in Charleston, S.C.
In a 321-page legal brief filed Tuesday with the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, his lawyers argued that when Roof represented himself in court, he “was a 22-year-old, ninth-grade dropout” who suffered from schizophrenia, autism, anxiety and depression.
Roof told a jury at the time that he wasn’t mentally ill and chose to represent himself in the sentencing phase of his death-penalty trial.