The marksman who killed 11 worshipers in a Pittsburgh temple will be formally doomed to death on Thursday morning by the judge who presided over the three- month trial in U.S. quarter court. Jurors in the case decided on Wednesday that the marksman, Robert Bowers, should be given the death penalty, and the judge, Robert Colville, is bound by the jury’s decision. But the hail could be further than the duty of the judgment. Family members of those who were killed will have a chance “to partake the impact of their losses, to describe how the defendant’s crimes have impacted them and their families,” said Eric Olshan, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Unlike the penalty phase of the trial, when some cousins were called to swear and asked about the magnitude of their losses, Thursday’s hail will allow them to speak on their terms. The judge himself may offer some reflections about the October 2018 mass firing, considered the deadliest antisemitic attack in the country’s history. It’s unclear whether Mr. Bowers, 50, who has said nothing intimately since the morning of the attack, will address the court before he’s doomed. The judge also has to hand down rulings on the dozens of persuasions in the case that didn’t carry a death judgment.
The jury’s recommendation of death concerned the 22 hate crimes and civil rights offenses connected to the killings that Mr. Bowers carried out in the temple. But he was condemned on 41 other civil counts, too, including arms charges. “Those are counts on which he was set up shamefaced, and thus he must admit a judgment, and the judgment has to be by the law,” said David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. In the doubtful event that Mr. Bowers’s death judgment was capsized, Professor Harris said, he’d still be confined on these other persuasions “He did not only murder these people, but he also did other effects, too. And so, we fete the total of the case, indeed though carrying out the death judgment would take care of any other judgment that he faces.” What happens beyond this hail is less clear. Like all people doomed to death, Mr. Bowers was automatically granted an appeal, and his attorneys have indicated that they intend to pursue it. He was also charged with 36 counts in state court, including 11 counts of murder. The quarter attorney of Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, agreed to break its execution while the civil process unfolded. In a statement on Wednesday, the quarter attorney’s office said that because of the “emotional strain” of the civil trial for victims, cousins, and the community, “it would be unhappy for us to note on our charges until we’ve had a chance to meet with the families.”
