Dylann Roof

If unsuccessful in his appeal, Roof — now on federal death row at a maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana — could file a request that the trial court review the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence.

Dylann Roof has filed the next step in his federal appeal, challenging a court’s confirmation of his conviction and death sentence for the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond rejected arguments that the young white man should have been ruled incompetent to stand trial in the shootings at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.