A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the conviction and death sentence for Dylann Roof, who killed nine members of a Black church congregation in June 2015 at Mother Emanuel Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina. In 2017, Roof became the first person in the U.S. to be sentenced to death for a federal hate crime.

The admitted white supremacist was 21 years old at the time of the shooting. He fired approximately 74 rounds.

The victims were the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, the Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, the Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr. and the Rev. Myra Thompson.

Roof’s attorneys argued in the appeal that Roof was wrongfully allowed to represent himself during sentencing, a critical phase of his trial. Roof successfully prevented jurors from learning about his mental health. Roof’s attorneys argued he was “under the delusion he would be rescued from prison by white nationalists but only, bizarrely, if he kept his mental impairments out of public record.”

The 4th Circuit found that the trial judge did not make an error when he deemed Roof competent to stand trial.

“Dylann Roof murdered African Americans in their church, they welcomed him and he slaughtered them. He did so with the express intent of terrorizing not just his immediate victims at the historically important Mother Emanuel Church, but as many similar people as would hear of the mass murder,” the panel wrote in its ruling.

The press statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in South Carolina read: “No cold record of careful parsing of statutes and precedents can capture the full horror of what Roof did. His crimes qualify him for the harshest penalty a just society can impose."

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Nathan Williams, one of the lead prosecutors in the case, called the mass shooting one of the worst events in South Carolina’s history.

“Our office is grateful for the decision of the court, a decision that ensures, as the Court stated, that ‘the harshest penalty a just society can impose’ is indeed imposed,” Williams said in a statement.

Following his federal trial, Roof was given nine consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty to state murder charges, leaving him to await execution in federal prison.

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a moratorium on federal executions in July as the Justice Department conducts a review of execution policies and procedures. The decision came after former President Donald Trump carried out 13 executions in six months. President Joe Biden promised to work to end federal executions when he was on the campaign trail.

As the vice president in 2015, Biden attended one of the funerals of the victims and has since said his visit to Mother Emanuel helped him heal after the death of his son Beau.

Roof remains on death row in Terre Haute Federal Prison in Indiana.