PITTSBURGH (AP) – Lawyers for the suspect in the synagogue shooting that killed 11 people in Pittsburgh have challenged his potential death sentence as unconstitutional.
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Lawyers for Robert Bowers argued in court papers filed this week that capital punishment violates the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause and the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
They also said the practice of carrying out federal executions in state prisons violates a Tenth Amendment protection that says states can’t be made to enforce federal laws, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Friday.
Defense lawyer Judy Clarke has made similar arguments in other high-profile capital cases. Her clients have included Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tasarnaev, who is appealing his 2015 death sentence, and “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, who entered a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty.
In court filings, Clarke said that she has tried to negotiate a life sentence for Bowers but that prosecutors have rebuffed her.
Bowers is charged with killing 11 congregants during a Shabbat service at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, and injuring six others, including four police officers.
He has pleaded not guilty to 63 federal counts, 22 of which carry the death penalty. His defense team also includes public defenders Michael Novara and Elisa Long.
No trial date has been set.
What is worse than Bower’s lawyers fighting the death penalty for their Nazi mass murdering client, are Jews (some connected with the Tree of Life Synagogue), and others in Pittsburgh, who have publicly spoken out against Bowers being sentenced to death. They place other Jews in danger, because the next time a Nazi mass murderer decides to strike a Jewish target, he will presume that there will be Jews, who will advocate against the death penalty, in case he is caught. Even is Bowers is never executed, let him rot on death row for the next 20 or more years, wondering when he will get a lethal injection.
I am opposed to the death penalty in general. Further, I am opposed to it in this case. The killer seems to be mentally ill.
It is astounding, PaulinSaudi how you change positions, depending upon how the wind in blowing. It was on this site, only a few weeks ago, when this same case was being discussed, that you wrote the opposite opinion. You wrote in so many words, “I am opposed to the death penalty, but in this specific case, even I would favor it”. At that time, you never mentioned that the killer was “mentally ill”. In the country where you live, killers such as Bowers are executed in public. Have you ever publicly spoken up in Saudi Arabia, about their capital punishment laws?
Paulsaudi,
If he’s mentally ill, how come he didn’t shoot HIMSELF first?
To: Excuses- Excellent point!