Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine people in a tragic shooting at the historically black Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015, has been sentenced to death, according to the New York Times.
The jury of 10 women and two men, who found him guilty of 33 different counts last month, deliberated for only three hours before sentencing him in a unanimous verdict.
22-year-old Roof represented himself throughout the sentencing proceedings, and not only confessed to the killings and called no witnesses, but also denied any question of his mental health. The New York Times also reports that the sentence seemed largely inevitable due to the way Roof frequently insisted that he felt no remorse for the killings.
In a statement, Roof's relatives said they will "always love Dylann" but will "struggle as long as we live to understand why he committed this horrible attack, which caused so much pain to so many good people."
Roof will be the first hate crime defendant ever to be sentenced to death. He will be the 63rd person ever placed on federal death row, and the most recent since Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, NBC reports. However, it will likely be years until Roof is actually put to death, due to controversy surrounding the use of lethal injections and possible appeals. Roof also faces a second trial in the state of South Carolina, a date for which as not yet been determined.
