Jury Finds Defendant Eligible for Federal Death Penalty in Pittsburgh Synagogue Trial

The jury that found Richard Bowers guilty of all 63 fed­er­al charges he faces in con­nec­tion with the 2018 Pittsburgh syn­a­gogue shoot­ing found him eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty on July 13, 2023. Jurors delib­er­at­ed for about two hours before find­ing that the pros­e­cu­tion had met its bur­den by prov­ing that Mr. Bowers had the nec­es­sary intent to com­mit the crime and that the crime had spe­cif­ic aggra­vat­ing fac­tors for eli­gi­bil­i­ty. These fac­tors includ­ed the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of sev­er­al of the vic­tims. Defense coun­sel pre­sent­ed evi­dence of Mr. Bowers’ men­tal health his­to­ry begin­ning when he was a child, includ­ing numer­ous sui­cide attempts and com­mit­ments to psy­chi­atric facil­i­ties by the age of 13, and argued he was too delu­sion­al to face the death penal­ty. Mental health experts tes­ti­fied for the defense and the pros­e­cu­tion about whether Mr. Bowers’ men­tal impair­ments affect­ed his abil­i­ty to form the nec­es­sary intent for death penalty eligibility.

In the next phase of the tri­al, the jury will be asked to decide a dif­fer­ent ques­tion: whether Mr. Bowers should be sen­tenced to death. The jury will hear more detailed infor­ma­tion in this penal­ty phase about Mr. Bowers’ epilep­sy, schiz­o­phre­nia, and struc­tur­al and func­tion­al brain impair­ments that the defense argues made him delu­sion­al at the time of the crime. They will also learn about Mr. Bowers’ life his­to­ry so they can make the legal­ly required ​“indi­vid­u­al­ized sen­tenc­ing deter­mi­na­tion” about whether he is among those for whom the death penal­ty should be reserved.

The pros­e­cu­tion, which has chal­lenged Mr. Bowers’ men­tal health diag­noses, is expect­ed to present addi­tion­al aggra­vat­ing evi­dence in sup­port of a death sen­tence, as well as vic­tim impact tes­ti­mo­ny from fam­i­ly mem­bers. Victims’ fam­i­lies will be able to tes­ti­fy about how the loss of their loved ones has affect­ed them, but they can­not tes­ti­fy about which pun­ish­ment they believe Mr. Bowers should receive. Family mem­bers of the 11 shoot­ing vic­tims have been divid­ed about whether Mr. Bowers should receive the death penalty.