Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting
The gunman who killed 11 worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue will be formally sentenced to death on Thursday morning by the judge who presided over the three-month trial in U.S. district court.
Jurors in the case decided on Wednesday that the gunman, Robert Bowers, should be given the death penalty, and the judge, Robert Colville, is bound by the jury’s decision.
But the hearing could be more than the imposition of the sentence.
Family members of those who were killed will have a chance “to share 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 relatives were called to testify and asked about the magnitude of their losses, Thursday’s hearing will allow them to speak on their own terms.
Source: The New York Times
