NBC NEWS
The man who killed 11 congregants and wounded seven others at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 was sentenced to death Thursday.
The formal sentence came one day after a jury had reached the unanimous decision to impose the death penalty on the perpetrator of the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
U.S. District Judge Robert Colville handed down the sentence to Robert Gregory Bowers, 50, a truck driver whose vicious antisemitism led him to shoot his way into a place of worship and target people for practicing their faith at the Tree of Life synagogue.
“I have nothing specific that I care to say to Mr. Bowers,” Colville said, before issuing the formal sentence. “I am however convinced there is nothing I could say to him that might be meaningful.”
Despite the judge’s sentence, it could be years before the shooter’s execution takes place, in light of the Department of Justice’s moratorium on capital punishment.
Federal jurors had decided Wednesday that the shooter would be sentenced to death, and the judge was then bound to impose their punishment. The panel had to be unanimous or else the shooter would have received life in prison without parole…
