A federal jury determined Wednesday that the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter should be sentenced to death.
Robert Bowers, the man who killed 11 worshippers and wounded six others in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018, was found guilty on June 16 of all 63 charges against him, CNN reported. The charges included hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death, among numerous other capital offenses.
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The Tree of Life shooting was the deadliest attack on Jewish people in the United States.
Before coming to a unanimous decision, jurors deliberated for about 10 hours over two days. They unanimously agreed with the prosecution’s argument and rejected some of the defense’s key points. For example, none of the jurors found Bowers “is a person with schizophrenia” nor believed he “committed the offense under mental or emotional disturbance,” as argued by the defense attorneys.
After the verdict was read in court, U.S. District Judge Robert Colville thanked the jury for their decision, saying he has “never delivered [a verdict speech] with as much sincerity as I did just now.”
Bowers’s federal death sentence is the first of its kind to be instituted under the Biden administration, although it is the second to be pursued. The prior case involved Sayfullo Saipov, who was convicted for the 2017 terrorist attack that killed eight people in Manhattan. Saipov ended up getting a life imprisonment sentence earlier this year.
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The high-profile sentencing for Bowers comes six months after Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) said he would not issue any execution warrants during his term. In Pennsylvania, the method for the death penalty is lethal injection.
The court will reconvene at 9 a.m. Thursday for the sentencing hearing, where the death penalty for Bowers will be imposed.
