Dylann Roof asks judges to reconsider recusal from his case

By MEG KINNARD
Associated Press

Dylann Roof wants the entire appellate court that recused itself from hearing his case to reconsider that decision. Roof’s attorneys have made that request in new documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as he challenges his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation. All of the judges on the court have recused themselves from the case. One of them, Judge Jay Richardson, was lead prosecutor on Roof’s case. Roof’s lawyers say the court should still be able to decide whether he should get a new appellate hearing. In 2017, Roof became the first person in the U.S. sentenced to death for a federal hate crime, for the killings at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.