Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers to face death penalty, jury rules

The gunman who stormed a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh's Jewish community and killed 11 worshipers will be sentenced to death, a jury decided Wednesday.

Robert Bowers spewed hatred against Jews and espoused white supremacist beliefs online before methodically planning and carrying out the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue massacre – the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in state history -United.

Members of three congregations had gathered at the synagogue for Sabbath worship and study when Bowers, a truck driver from suburban Baldwin, led the attack.

Two worshipers and five police officers who intervened on the spot were also injured.

The same federal jury that convicted Bowers, 50, of 63 counts recommended Wednesday that he be put to death for the attack.

He showed little reaction when the sentence was announced, briefly acknowledging his legal team and family as he was led out of the courtroom. A judge will formally pronounce the sentence later.

Jurors were unanimous in concluding that Bowers' attack was motivated by his hatred of Jews and that he chose Tree of Life for its location in one of the largest and most historic Jewish communities in the United States in order to be able to “maximize the devastation, amplify the damage”. of his crimes and instill fear in local, national and international Jewish communities. They also found that Bowers lacked remorse.

Bowers forced his way into Tree of Life on October 27, 2018, and killed members of the Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life congregations, which shared the synagogue building.

He opened fire on terrified worshipers with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons.

The family of Rose Mallinger, 97, killed in the attack, and her daughter, Andrea Wedner, who was shot and wounded, thanked jurors Wednesday and said “a measure of justice has been served.”

“Issuing a death sentence is not an easy decision, but we must hold accountable those who wish to commit such terrible acts of anti-Semitism, hatred and violence,” the family said in a written statement.

Bowers' lead defense attorney, Judy Clarke, declined to comment.

The verdict came after a lengthy trial in which jurors heard in chilling detail how Bowers reloaded his guns at least twice during the attack, stepped over the bloodied bodies of his victims to look for others to target. fire and only surrendered when he ran out of ammunition. .

During the sentencing phase, grieving family members told the jury about those killed by Bowers — a 97-year-old woman and among them intellectually disabled brothers — and the unending pain of their loss.

Survivors spoke of their own lingering pain, both physical and emotional.

Through it all, Bowers showed little reaction to the proceedings that would decide his fate – usually by looking at papers or screens at the defense table – although he could be seen conversing at length with his legal team during the breaks.

He even told a psychiatrist that he believed the trial was helping to spread his anti-Semitic message.

It is the first federal death sentence handed down under President Joe Biden, whose 2020 campaign included a pledge to end capital punishment.

Mr. Biden's Justice Department has imposed a moratorium on federal executions and refused to authorize the death penalty in hundreds of new cases where it could be applied.

But federal prosecutors said death was the appropriate punishment for Bowers, citing the vulnerability of his mostly elderly victims and his hateful targeting of a religious community.

Most, but not all, of the victims' families said Bowers should die for his crimes.

“Many of our members prefer that the shooter spend the rest of his life in prison, wondering whether we should seek revenge or revenge on him or whether his death would ‘make up for’ the lives lost,” according to a statement from Stephen Cohen . and Barbara Caplan, co-presidents of the New Light Congregation, which lost three members in the attack.

But the congregation as a whole, they write, “agrees with the government's position that no one can murder innocent individuals simply because of their religion… Congregation New Light accepts the jury's decision and believes that as a society we must take the lead. a position that this act requires the ultimate sanction under the law.

Bowers' lawyers never disputed his guilt, focusing their efforts on trying to save his life.

They presented evidence of a horrific childhood marked by trauma and neglect. They also claimed that Bowers suffered from a serious and untreated mental illness, saying he killed because he delusional believed that Jews were helping to cause white genocide.

But the prosecution denied that mental illness had anything to do with it, and the jury agreed with that argument.

The victims who died, besides Ms. Mallinger, were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Wax Melvin, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.