The first phase of jury selection in the trial of accused Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers concluded Wednesday with 69 potential jurors still eligible to be seated on the final panel.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers next Thursday will begin whittling that down to an 18-person jury, with 12 jurors and six alternates. In federal death penalty cases, each side gets 20 peremptory strikes. Peremptory strikes allow attorneys to dismiss a potential juror without giving a reason or citing a cause.
Testimony in the trial will likely begin after Memorial Day.
In the interim, Mr. Bowers will undergo a psychiatric exam by experts hired by the prosecution. The exam was a point of contention for months, and U.S. District Judge Robert Colville ruled last week that the government could move forward with certain stipulations and restrictions.
The exam can take place over no more than 4 ½ days at the facility where Mr. Bowers is being held. Defense attorneys, the judge decided late Wednesday, will be permitted on the premises and can consult with Mr. Bowers during breaks, but they can’t sit in on or observe the examination.
Mr. Bowers, 50, faces 63 charges in the Oct. 27, 2018 killing of 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue housing three different congregations: Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life. Eleven worshippers were killed: Richard Gottfried, Joyce Fienberg, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger.
Lawyers have estimated that the so-called guilt phase of the federal death penalty trial will take about three weeks. If Mr. Bowers is found guilty, the sentencing phase would last about six weeks.
The secondary pool of 69 jurors was drawn from 1,500 people from 13 Western Pennsylvania counties: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Clarion, Fayette, Greene, Jefferson, Indiana, Lawrence, Mercer, Washington and Westmoreland.--
The potential jurors are about equally split between men and women, and they are mostly white.
The jury selection process was tedious but steady, with around 13 or 14 potential jurors questioned each of the 17 days. The judge and attorneys questioned around 215 potential jurors during that time.
The questioning focused mostly on the ability of potential jurors to sign their names to a death sentence if they believed the circumstances called for it. It was a question that shook some people. Several cried during questioning, and others were visibly anxious and emotional.
“This is something I have to live with for the rest of my life,” one said. “I don’t know that I could do that.”
“It is a heavy decision to take someone’s life,” another said. “I do believe, in this case, I would be able to listen to all the facts.”
Those heavy questions are what made the process a slow one — something experts predicted early on would likely be the case.
“You can have a person who would be an absolute perfect juror: fair, able to objectively view evidence, but if you say to them, ‘Would you be able to impose the death penalty?’ and they say, ‘No, I’m sorry, I have certain moral or ethical views that would prevent me from doing that,’ — they’re off the jury,” Bruce Antkowiak, a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney teaching at St. Vincent College, said ahead of the selection process.
For the defense, that means striking a balance, as they’re already starting off with a group of potential jurors who have declared their willingness to impose the death penalty.
“You have to balance that with, ‘OK, in saying that you’re willing to give it, are you also saying that you are bound and determined to give it or that you would objectively weigh everything before you would find this to be the necessary verdict,’” Mr. Antkowiak said.
First Published: May 17, 2023, 4:04 p.m.
Updated: May 18, 2023, 2:50 p.m.