Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter guilty on all charges, could receive death penalty

The man who killed 11 worshipers in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 was found guilty Friday of federal hate crime charges.

A jury will now decide if Robert Bowers will receive the death penalty for committing the most deadly antisemitic attack in U.S. history. Sentencing is scheduled for June 26.

Bowers, 50, opened fire on worshipers at Tree of Life on the morning of Oct. 27, 2018; an additional two attendees and five police officers were injured in the attack. Bowers surrendered after being shot multiple times by police.

His defense has never claimed his innocence but rather sought to convince the jury to spare his life. His attorneys repeatedly offered a guilty plea on all charges in exchange for life in prison, but federal prosecutors chose to go forward with the trial.

The jury found Bowers guilty on all 63 felony charges, 22 of which can carry the death penalty, including the federal hate crime charges. The trial began in April.

The specific capital offense charges include 11 counts of obstructing free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and 11 counts of hate crimes resulting in death.

His attorneys argue that he should not be given the death penalty because his motive was not to prevent worship, a key factor for the hate crime charges. The defense has also claimed that Bowers suffers from multiple mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and epilepsy. 

The guilty verdict was lauded by Pittsburgh’s congressional delegation. 

“This resounding conviction … is a clear rebuke of the hate and antisemitism that motivated the defendant to target worshippers observing Shabbat morning services,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said in a statement Friday.

“May the memories of those taken from us be forever a blessing. And may the strength and resilience shown by the survivors, the victims’ family members and the entire Jewish community throughout this heartbreaking trial forever be an inspiration to us all,” Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) added.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) called the verdict a “step towards justice.”

Bowers’s attorneys did not present any witnesses for the defense, but did cross-examine the victims and first responders who spoke on behalf of the prosecution.

“There is no disagreement, there is no dispute and there will be no doubt as to who shot the 11 congregants,” Bowers’s lead attorney Judy Clarke said during the trial. “On Oct. 27, 2018, Robert Bowers, the man seated at that table, loaded with ammunition and firearms entered the synagogue.”

Clarke is well-known for her attempts to keep mass shooters and terrorists off of death row. She defended the surviving Boston Marathon bomber, the Unabomber and the man who shot then-Rep. Gabby Giffords (D) and five other people in Arizona in 2011.

The Boston Marathon bomber was sentenced to death, though his case is being appealed. The Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who died in prison Saturday, and Arizona shooter Jared Lee Loughner successfully avoided the death penalty.

Federal prosecutors asked surviving victims and witnesses a slate of questions in their attempt to prove the hate crime charges. Prosecutor Troy Rivetti asked victim Andrea Wedner, who was injured and whose mother died in the attack, whether Bowers prevented her from worshiping.

“Did you go there to worship and pray?” Rivetti asked her. “Did the defendant prevent you from praying? Did the defendant come into the chapel and shoot you?”

She answered “yes” to each question.

Bowers’s defense further tried to argue that he did not seek to kill Jews specifically; Clarke even attempted to have the religious elements of the hate crime charges removed but was not successful.

“The prosecution says that Robert Bowers had a deep and abiding prejudice, that he hated Jews,” she said during the trial. “We know that there is more to the story.”

According to police testimony, Bowers told arresting officers that he wanted to “kill all Jews.” Investigators found that he frequently shared white supremacist content online and often railed against immigration and refugee resettlement.

A congregation at the synagogue had held an event supporting refugee resettlement not long before the shooting.

In closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors reiterated that Bowers’s killings were methodical, planned and intentional.

“We ask that you hold this defendant accountable for everything he did to the worshippers who survived and told you what happened that day, and hold him accountable for all those who could not tell you what happened that day,” prosecutor Mary Hahn told the jury. 

The defense again argued that Bowers did not strike the synagogue to target Jews, but rather those who support immigrants. Immigrants are not a protected class under hate crime legislation.

“Stopping religious study was not his intent or motive,” Long said. 

Prosecutors called that claim “absurd.”

Jury deliberations began late Thursday and wrapped up late Friday morning, following multiple questions by the jury seeking clarification on the specific meanings of the hate crime charges.

The synagogue is in the historically Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood of east Pittsburgh.

In responding to Clarke’s attempts to avoid execution, prosecutors have said that the death penalty is “specifically warranted here,” due to Bowers’s antisemitism and choice to commit the attack during a service.

Clarke has received support in her aims from some representatives of two of the three congregations at the synagogue. The rabbi of New Light and members of the Dor Hadash congregations penned letters to the Justice Department urging prosecutors to avoid the death penalty.

“We are still attending to our wounds, both physical and emotional, and I don’t want to see them opened any more,” rabbi Jonathan Perlman wrote.

However, families of nine of the 11 victims published a letter in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle last year, saying that taking a plea deal would be giving Bowers an “easy way out.”

“We are not a ruthless, uncompassionate people; we, as a persecuted people, understand when there is a time for compassion and when there is a time to stand up and say enough is enough,” they wrote. “His crimes deserve the death penalty.”

Bowers’s is a rare case of a mass shooter going to trial, as most end in the death of the attacker. The man who killed 12 in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater in 2012 was sentenced to life in prison, as was the man who killed 17 at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in 2018. The white supremacist who killed nine at a church in Charleston, S.C., was given the death penalty. 

Updated at 5:14 p.m.