Dylann Roof’s sentence has two parts that work together. A federal jury sentenced him to death in January 2017 for the murder of nine Black parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, and three months later a South Carolina court sentenced him to nine consecutive terms of life in prison without parole after he pleaded guilty to state murder charges. He remains on federal death row at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The Federal Death Sentence
On December 15, 2016, a federal jury convicted Roof on all 33 counts against him, covering hate crimes under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, obstruction of the free exercise of religion under the Church Arson Prevention Act, and firearms offenses tied to each murder.1United States Department of Justice. Federal Jury Sentences Dylann Storm Roof to Death Eighteen of those counts carried the possibility of death: nine for obstruction of religious exercise resulting in death and nine for using a firearm to commit murder.
After a penalty phase in which Roof, representing himself, presented no mitigating evidence, the jury unanimously recommended death. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel imposed the sentence in January 2017, ordering death on all 18 capital counts.1United States Department of Justice. Federal Jury Sentences Dylann Storm Roof to Death Roof became the first person in the United States sentenced to death for a federal hate crime.
The authorized method of federal execution is lethal injection. Roof is held in the Special Confinement Unit at the Terre Haute penitentiary, the facility that houses federal death row. Inmates there spend nearly all of each day in their cells, with only a few hours of out-of-cell time per week.
The State Life Sentences
In April 2017, Roof pleaded guilty to all state charges, including nine counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. The plea removed the need for a second capital trial and spared victims’ families another round of testimony. The court imposed nine consecutive sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, plus 90 additional years for the attempted murder counts.
Those state sentences function as a backstop. If Roof’s federal conviction or death sentence were ever overturned, the state sentences would keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Because he pleaded guilty, there is no state conviction for him to appeal.
Why He Was Prosecuted Twice for the Same Killings
Roof’s two prosecutions do not violate double jeopardy. Under the dual sovereignty doctrine, a single act can violate both federal and state law, and each government can prosecute it independently. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the doctrine in 2019, holding that offenses charged by different sovereigns are not the “same offence” under the Fifth Amendment. South Carolina had jurisdiction over the murders. The federal government had jurisdiction because the killings violated federal hate crime and religious obstruction statutes, both of which authorize the death penalty when the offense results in death.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 247 – Damage to Religious Property; Obstruction of Persons in the Free Exercise of Religious Beliefs
Where the Appeals Stand
Roof’s direct appeal went to a specially convened panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In August 2021, the three-judge panel unanimously affirmed both the convictions and the death sentence, rejecting arguments that Roof was incompetent to stand trial and that the district court should not have allowed him to represent himself at sentencing.3Justia Law. United States v. Roof, No. 17-3 (4th Cir. 2021) The Fourth Circuit denied rehearing by the full court.
Roof petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review. On October 11, 2022, the Court denied the petition, ending direct review of the case.4Supreme Court of the United States. No. 21-7234 Dylann Storm Roof, Petitioner v. United States
The next stage is post-conviction review. Roof can file a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 challenging his sentence on grounds such as ineffective assistance of counsel or constitutional violations not raised at trial. In federal capital cases, those proceedings routinely stretch across a decade or more before an execution date can be seriously considered.
Will Roof Actually Be Executed?
The practical question of whether Roof is executed depends on federal policy as much as it depends on the courts. In July 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a moratorium on federal executions pending a review of execution protocols, and no federal executions were scheduled while it was in force.
In December 2024, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life without parole. Roof was one of three inmates excluded from the commutations, leaving his death sentence intact.
On February 5, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi lifted the moratorium and directed the Office of Legal Policy to evaluate whether to readopt the July 2019 execution protocol using pentobarbital as a single-drug lethal injection, with a report due within 90 days.5Justice.gov. Reviving the Federal Death Penalty and Lifting the Moratorium on Federal Executions The action followed President Trump’s Executive Order 14164, which directed the Attorney General to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.”6The White House. Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety
No execution date has been publicly scheduled for Roof as of early 2026. His post-conviction proceedings would typically need to conclude before one could go forward. What has changed is the framework around the sentence: it is again enforceable, and Roof was specifically kept off the list of commutations that would have removed him from death row.
Clemency
The last option available to any federal death row inmate is a petition for presidential clemency, either a commutation or a reprieve. Federal regulations advise that a clemency petition for a death row inmate not be filed until the direct appeal and the first round of post-conviction proceedings have concluded.7eCFR. Part 1 – Executive Clemency Once an execution date is set, the petition must be filed within 30 days of notification, with supporting papers due 15 days after that. Petitions go to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, which reviews the case and makes a recommendation to the President. Victims’ families have the right to make an oral presentation to the Pardon Attorney’s office during that review.
Those regulations do not bind the President, whose constitutional clemency power is essentially unlimited. Given the current administration’s stated policy of pursuing federal executions, clemency for Roof is a theoretical avenue rather than a realistic one.