PITTSBURGH — The gunman who barged into a Pittsburgh synagogue and opened fire, killing 11 and wounding seven others, will be sentenced to death, a federal jurors decided Wednesday.
The tragedy, nearly five years ago, was the most heinous antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
The gunman, Robert Bowers, posted incessantly on social media about his hatred of Jewish people and immigrants for months before the attack. Armed with an AR-15 and other weapons, he opened fire inside the Tree of Life Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018.
The jury will now deliver its verdict to U.S. District Court Judge Robert Colville, who is bound to impose the death penalty against the gunman.
Jurors had to reach a unanimous decision to impose the death penalty or else the gunman would have received life without the possibility of parole.
Despite the sentence, it could be years before an execution takes places in light of the Department of Justice’s moratorium on capital punishment.
Executions are relatively rare in the federal system. Just 50 have been carried out since 1927, the last one on Jan. 16, 2021, when triple murderer Dustin John Higgs died by lethal injection at U.S. Penitentiary, Terre Haute, a maximum security federal prison in Indiana.
Last month, this same jury found the shooter guilty on 63 criminal counts stemming from the attack.
During the trial, the prosecution heavily referred to that mindset to prove the gunman had the requisite intent to kill, while the defense unsuccessfully argued that mental illness and delusional beliefs caused the massacre.
The victims of Bower’s attack were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Cecil Rosenthal, 59; David Rosenthal, 54; Bernice Simon, 84; Sylvan Simon, 86; Daniel Stein, 71; Irving Younger, 69; and Melvin Wax, 87.
Carolina Gonzalez reported from Pittsburgh, and David K. Li from New York City.
David K. Li