Appeals court rules Dylann Roof death penalty-eligible for church massacre

Dylann Roof, the white gunman who killed nine black people in the 2015 Charleston church massacre, is one step closer to execution after a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled he’s eligible to receive the death penalty.

“His crimes qualify him for the harshest penalty that a just society can impose,” a three-judge panel for the Richmond-based Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote, according to The State newspaper.

Roof was convicted in 2017 of slaughtering nine parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston after planning the attack for months in an...