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Robert Bowers Sentenced To Death In PA

Robert Bowers the man behind the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left eleven people dead has been sentenced to death in Pennsylvania and will head to Federal death row

According to court documents Robert Bowers would enter the Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018 and opened fire killing eleven people and leaving six people injured including four police officers who arrived at the mass shooting

Robert Bowers faced more than sixty charges related to the Tree of Life synagogue shooting and the jury would find him guilty on all charges

Now the jury has decided the only appropriate punishment for the mass shooting is the death penalty.

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he gunman who stormed a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and killed 11 worshippers will be sentenced to death for perpetrating the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

Robert Bowers spewed hatred of Jews and espoused white supremacist beliefs online before methodically planning and carrying out the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, where members of three congregations had gathered for Sabbath worship and study. Bowers, a truck driver from suburban Baldwin, also wounded two worshippers and five responding police officers.

The same federal jury that convicted the 50-year-old Robert Bowers on 63 criminal counts recommended Wednesday that he be put to death for an attack whose impacts continue to reverberate nearly five years later. He showed little reaction as the sentence was announced, briefly acknowledging his legal team and family as he was led from the courtroom. A judge will formally impose the sentence later.

Jurors were unanimous in finding that Bowers’ attack was motivated by his hatred of Jews, and that he chose Tree of Life for its location in one the largest and most historic Jewish communities in the U.S. so that he could “maximize the devastation, amplify the harm of his crimes, and instill fear within the local, national, and international Jewish communities.” They also found that Bowers lacked remorse.

The family of 97-year-old Rose Mallinger, who was killed in the attack, and her daughter, Andrea Wedner, who was shot and wounded, thanked the jurors and said “a measure of justice has been served.”

“Returning a sentence of death is not a decision that comes easy, but we must hold accountable those who wish to commit such terrible acts of antisemitism, hate, and violence,” the family said in a written statement.

The verdict came after a lengthy trial in which jurors heard in chilling detail how Bowers reloaded at least twice, stepped over the bloodied bodies of his victims to look for more people to shoot, and surrendered only when he ran out of ammunition. In the sentencing phase, grieving family members told the jury about the lives that Bowers took — a 97-year-old woman and intellectually disabled brothers among them — and the unrelenting pain of their loss. Survivors testified about their own lasting pain, both physical and emotional.

Through it all, Bowers showed little reaction to the proceeding that would decide his fate — typically looking down at papers or screens at the defense table — though he could be seen conversing at length with his legal team during breaks. He even told a psychiatrist that he thought the trial was helping to spread his antisemitic message.

It was the first federal death sentence imposed during the presidency of Joe Biden, whose 2020 campaign included a pledge to end capital punishment. Biden’s Justice Department has placed a moratorium on federal executions and has declined to authorize the death penalty in hundreds of new cases where it could apply. But federal prosecutors said death was the appropriate punishment for Bowers, citing the vulnerability of his mainly elderly victims and his hate-based targeting of a religious community. Most victims’ families said Bowers should die for his crimes.

Bowers’ lawyers never contested his guilt, focusing their efforts on trying to save his life. They presented evidence of a horrific childhood marked by trauma and neglect. They also claimed Bowers had severe, untreated mental illness, saying he killed out of a delusional belief that Jews were helping to cause a genocide of white people. The defense argued that schizophrenia and brain abnormalities made Bowers more susceptible to being influenced by the extremist content he found online.

The prosecution denied mental illness had anything to do with it, saying Bowers knew exactly what he was doing when he violated the sanctity of a house of worship by opening fire on terrified congregants with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons, shooting everyone he could find.

The jury sided with prosecutors, specifically rejecting most of the primary defense arguments for a life sentence, including that he has schizophrenia and that his delusions about Jewish people spurred the attack. Jurors did find that his difficult childhood merited consideration, but gave more weight to the severity of the crimes.

Bowers blasted his way into Tree of Life on Oct. 27, 2018, and killed members of the Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life congregations, which shared the synagogue building.

The victims were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.

Bowers, who traded gunfire with responding officers and was shot three times, told police at the scene that “all these Jews need to die,” according to testimony. Ahead of the attack, he posted, liked or shared a stream of virulently antisemitic content on Gab, a social media platform popular with the far right. He has expressed no remorse for the killings, telling mental health experts he saw himself as a soldier in a race war, took pride in the attack and wished he had shot more people.

In emotional testimony, the victims’ family members described what Bowers took from them. “My world has fallen apart,” Sharyn Stein, Dan Stein’s widow, told the jury.

Survivors and other affected by the attack will have another opportunity to address the court — and Bowers — when he is formally sentenced by the judge.

The synagogue has been closed since the shootings. The Tree of Life congregation is working on an overhauled synagogue complex that would house a sanctuary, museum, memorial and center for fighting antisemitism.

https://news.yahoo.com/jury-resumes-deliberations-over-death-131602865.html

Sayfullo Saipov Murders 8 People In NYC With A Truck

The murder trial of Sayfullo Saipov is finally beginning in New York for the murders of eight people in which he committed with a truck and if he is convicted he will be the next to join Federal Death Row. According to police reports Sayfullo Saipov rented a truck in New York City and drove down a bicycle path striking and killing eight people. Along with the murder charges Sayfullo Saipov is also facing terrorist charges which makes the crime Federal and eligible for the death penalty. The actual trial is suppose to take three months.

President Joe Biden who is not a supporter of the death penalty has spoken in the past of eliminating capital punishment on a Federal level. If Sayfullo Saipov does not get the death penalty when convicted he can expect to spend the rest of his life at ADX Florence the supermax prison in Colorado.

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A federal trial began Monday for Sayfullo Saipov, who is accused of using a rental truck to kill eight people after speeding into a New York City bike path in 2017.

Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan who was 29 at the time of the attack, has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of murder. He could face the death penalty if convicted. He entered the federal courtroom in New York City wearing an olive-green sweater, gray pants, a beard, as well as reading glasses and a white face mask. Several of the victims’ families were also in attendance as Judge Vernon Broderick opened the proceedings Monday morning.

The trial is expected to last three months, with the jury sitting Mondays through Thursdays, the court says

Saipov’s attack is being treated as an act of terrorism, and prosecutors say they found multiple notes, written in Arabic, in and near the rental vehicle indicating that Saipov had pledged his loyalty to ISIS. Saipov is the first person to face federal charges that could result in the death penalty under President Biden’s administration

Eight people were left dead and 12 others injured following the 2017 attack, which took place near the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Of the eight killed, six were tourists from foreign countries, including five from Argentina and one from Belgium.

Some family members of foreign victims wore translation earpieces in the courtroom on Monday.

After speeding through the bike path, Saipov is accused of crashing his vehicle into a yellow school bus before exiting and yelling “Allahu Akbar.” He was immediately shot twice by nearby police officers, but he survived the wounds.

Saipov had worked as an Uber driver in New Jersey prior to the attack and had moved to New York City in search of better work opportunities

Federal authorities in New York have not carried out a death penalty since 1953

https://www.foxnews.com/us/trial-begins-accused-nyc-truck-attack-driver-sayfullo-saipov

Alfred Bourgeois Federal Execution

Alfred Bourgeois was executed by the Federal Government for the murder of his two year old daughter. According to court documents Alfred Bourgeois would torture, sexually assault and murder two year old daughter. Alfred Bourgeois would be executed by lethal injection on December 11, 2020

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Alfred Bourgeois was executed by the federal government Friday evening at the Federal Correctional Center in Terre Haute, Indiana, according to the Bureau of Prisons.Bourgeois, 56, was sentenced to death in 2004 for torturing and killing his 2-year-old daughter in Texas.

He was pronounced dead at 8:21 p.m. ET.In his last words, Bourgeois offered no apology and instead struck a deeply defiant tone, insisting that he neither killed nor sexually abused his baby girl, according to a report from the journalist present.”I ask God to forgive all those who plotted and schemed against me, and planted false evidence,” he said, according to the report, adding, “I did not commit this crime.”

Bourgeois is the 10th person to be executed since Attorney General William Barr announced in July 2019 the revival of capital punishment for federal death row inmates. Bourgeois was one of the first five scheduled to be executed.

His execution also comes nearly 24 hours after the federal execution of Brandon Bernard, whose execution drew ire from celebrities and politicians who fought until the end to halt the execution.Bourgeois was originally scheduled to die on January 13, but after challenging the implementation of the lethal injection, the District Court for the District of Columbia stayed the execution.

After the Supreme Court ruled that another death row inmate cannot be executed because of his intellectual disability, Bourgeois was able to make a “strong argument” in March of his own intellectual disability “under current diagnostic standards and that a hearing should be held to consider the evidence,” according to court documents.”The jury that sentenced Mr. Bourgeois to death never learned that he was a person with intellectual disability because his trial lawyers did not present the evidence that was available to them,” Victor Abreau, an attorney for Bourgeois, said in a news release after the execution date was rescheduled on November 20 to Friday.

After a higher court vacated Bourgeois’ order to stay his execution, the Bureau of Prisons rescheduled his death date, and he had exhausted all appeals.Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan published a dissent saying Bourgeois’ execution should have been stayed and he should have had an opportunity for a hearing to prove his intellectual disability.There are three more federal executions scheduled before January 20. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to abolish the federal death penalty and will give incentives to states to steer them away from seeking death sentences.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/11/politics/alfred-bourgeois-execution/index.html

Brandon Bernard Federal Execution

Brandon Bernard was executed by the Federal Government for the murders of Stacie and Todd Bagley. According to court documents Brandon Bernard, Christopher Vialva and three other men would force the couple into the trunk of the car, shot and set on fire. Christopher Vialva was also sentenced to death and executed on September 24, 2020. Brandon Bernard would be executed by lethal injection on December 10, 2020.

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Brandon Bernard was executed by the federal government on Thursday at the Federal Correctional Center in Terre Haute, Indiana, according to the Bureau of Prisons.Bernard, 40, was one of five gang members convicted in Texas of killing Stacie and Todd Bagley — who were youth ministers — in 1999.

The gunman, Christopher Vialva, was executed in September, while the other co-defendants were given lesser sentences.Bernard was pronounced dead at 9:27 p.m. He was the youngest person in the United States to receive a death sentence in nearly 70 years for a crime committed when he was an adolescent.Bernard said he had been waiting for his chance to apologize to the family of the Bagleys and his own family for the pain he caused.”I’m sorry … I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t,” Bernard said to the family of the Bagleys during his three-minute last words. “That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day.”

The Bagley family thanked Trump and the federal government for carrying out the sentence in their statements.”I pray that Brandon has accepted Christ as his Savior, because if he has, Todd and Stacie will welcome him into Heaven with love and forgiveness,” Charles Woodard wrote on behalf of the Bagley family.”It has been a very difficult to wait 21 years for the sentence that was imposed by the judge and jury on those who cruelly participated in the destruction of our children, to be finally completed,” Georgia A. Bagley,

Todd’s mother,wrote. “This senseless act of unnecessary evil was premeditated and had many opportunities to be stopped at any time during a 9-hour period. This was torture, as they pleaded for their lives from the trunk of their own car.”Georgia Bagley spoke to reporters within 30 minutes of the execution and became emotional when she spoke about Bernard’s and Vialva’s apologies.”The apology and remorse … helped very much heal my heart,” she said, beginning to cry and recompose herself. “I can very much say: I forgive them.”Bernard’s execution was scheduled this fall by the government.

It was the ninth execution since Attorney General William Barr announced restarting federal executions after a 17-year hiatus — a decision that has been fraught with controversy, especially during the global pandemic, and could be halted under President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.However, that may be too late for the five federal death row inmates scheduled to die before Inauguration Day, January 20.

Brandon Bernard’s case has been in the spotlight for months, grabbing headlines and the attention of both politicians and celebrities who wanted the execution to be stopped.Kim Kardashian West called for Trump to grant a commutation for Bernard;

Rep. Ayana Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, brought awareness to legislation she introduced last year to end the death penalty at the federal level; the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson called on the President to commute the sentences of and pardon all the inmates scheduled for execution; and 23 elected and former prosecutors filed an amicus brief on Wednesday in support of Bernard’s appeal due to allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.After a lower court judge denied Bernard’s motion to stay the execution on Wednesday, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals denied an emergency motion and the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also denied the appeal on Thursday, according to court documents.

Attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr joined Brandon Bernard legal team late on Thursday and had filed a petition with the Supreme Court requesting to delay the execution for two weeks so they could get up to speed on Bernard’s case. The attorneys’ most recent and notable client was President Donald Trump during his impeachment hearings earlier this year.The Supreme Court denied the petition, with three justices issuing public dissents.”Brandon’s execution is a stain on America’s criminal justice system. But I pray that even in his death, Brandon will advance his commitment to helping others by moving us closer to a time when this country does not pointlessly and maliciously kill young Black men who pose no threat to anyone,”

Brandon Bernard attorney Robert Owen said in a statement.The court’s decision left Trump as Bernard’s last hope. The President did not act.Trump was made aware of the case — and of the calls by celebrities and activists to commute Bernard’s sentence — over the past several days, according to a person familiar with the matter, but he was not swayed to intervene. The person said Trump was unmoved because of the violent nature of the crime. Trump has backed Barr in his push to complete federal executions before his term ends next month.Owen had sought to have a hearing about newly discovered evidence that was not presented at Bernard’s 2000 trial. Owen argued in Bernard’s appeal that, during a resentencing hearing in 2018 for another co-defendant, it was revealed that the trial prosecutors had withheld evidence that diminished Brandon Bernard role in the crime.

Prosecutors argued on Wednesday in court documents opposing Brandon Bernard appellate motion that “the jury heard ample evidence indicating that Bernard did not have a leadership role in the gang — and was not even a full-fledged member.””Procedural barriers have prevented him (Bernard) from obtaining a hearing on the merits of his claim. … By denying a stay of execution to Brandon Bernard, the court will allow the government to evade responsibility for hiding critical evidence that would have changed the outcome of Brandon’s sentencing,” Owen said in a news release issued on Wednesday.Five of the sentencing jurors came forward saying that if they had been aware of the undisclosed information, they would not have agreed to sentence Bernard to death, Owen said.

No state has held an execution since July, and several state executions have been postponed for Covid-related reasons, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Yet the federal government is slated to have executed a total of 13 federal death row inmates before Inauguration Day.Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center Robert Dunham told CNN in a previous interview that executions are possible super spreader events because of the amount of people involved.”The decision to move forward with all these super spreader events in the midst of a pandemic that has already killed a quarter of a million Americans is historically unprecedented,” Dunham said.

A federal judge in Indiana denied a motion for a preliminary injunction earlier this week to halt the five upcoming executions because of the risk of spreading the coronavirus throughout the Terre Haute federal prison. The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Indiana Terre Haute Division by attorneys for two non-death row inmates who are concerned that their high-risk clients are susceptible to catching the coronavirus.According to Chief Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson’s order denying the preliminary injunction, up to 125 people enter the facility for an execution, including nearly 40 out-of-state Bureau of Prisons employees who are part of the execution team.

Since Orlando Hall was put to death on November 19, six members of the execution team as well as more than a dozen other Terre Haute prison staffers have contracted the virus, according to a motion filed on Wednesday on behalf of the non-death row inmates.”Another inmate from FCI (Federal Correctional Institution) Terre Haute (where plaintiffs are housed) died from COVID-19 this week, one or more additional inmates appear to have recently died from USP Terre Haute, and the number of positive inmate cases at FCC (Federal Correctional Center) Terre Haute now stands at 326 as of December 8, up from 264 on Dec 7 and 202 on Dec 4,” according to the motion.

Attorneys for the Justice Department argued in court documents on Wednesday that the plaintiffs are attempting to re-argue their denied motion for preliminary injunction that states prison staffers, specifically those involved with the executions, can spread the virus to different sections of the facility.Interactions between the execution team and Federal Correctional Center Terre Haute staffers are “extremely limited, and members of the execution team generally do not even enter the FCI or interact with inmates there.

Plaintiffs do not interact with inmates on death row or with anyone in the execution facility,” according to the Justice Department’s opposition to continuing with proceedings for the lawsuit.The five inmates scheduled to die are all housed at the Indiana federal prison. Alfred Bourgeois is the next inmate scheduled to be executed on Friday. Bourgeois was sentenced to death for the torture and murder of his 2-year-old daughter.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/politics/brandon-bernard-executed/index.html

Orlando Hall Federal Execution

Orlando Hall was executed by the Federal Government for the sexual assault and murder of a teen. According to court documents Orlando Hall would kidnap Lisa Rene in 1994. The teenage girl would be sexually assaulted, beaten with a shovel and buried alive. Orlando Hall would be executed by lethal injection on November 19, 2020

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A marijuana trafficker convicted of kidnapping and raping a teen – and then burying her alive – was executed this week at an Indiana prison, becoming the eighth federal inmate to die this year.

Orlando Cordia Hall, 49, was put to death via lethal injection late Thursday at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, where he was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m., the Department of Justice announced.

Court documents show Hall, who ran a marijuana trafficking operation in Arkansas with several accomplices, drove to Arlington, Texas, in September 1994 after a botched drug deal worth $4,700.

Prosecutors said Hall and his accomplices went to the man’s home because they thought he stole their money and instead kidnapped his 16-year-old sister, Lisa Rene, after she refused to let them inside.

Orlando Hall then raped the teen — an honors student and aspiring doctor — in a car and later drove her to a hotel in Arkansas, where he and his accomplices bound and repeatedly raped her, prosecutors said.

The following morning, Hall said the teen had known “too much” and took her to a park where he and another man dug a grave earlier that afternoon, but were unable to find the site.

One day later, on Sept. 26, 1994, Hall and two other men took the teen to Byrd Natural Lake Area in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where Hall placed a sheet over her head and whacked her with a shovel, prosecutors said.

“Rene screamed and tried to run away, but the men tackled her and took turns beating her with the shovel,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “After soaking her with gasoline, they dragged her into the grave and buried her alive.”

A federal jury convicted Hall in 1995 of kidnapping resulting in death and unanimously sentenced him to die by lethal injection.

In his final statements, Hall encouraged others to become followers of Islam, the Tribune-Star reported.

“Thank you for giving me this opportunity for forgiveness,” Hall said. “Thank everyone who’s here – my family and my loved ones. I love you.”

Orlando Hall also had one final message for his children.

“I’m OK,” he said. “Take care of yourself. Tell my kids I love them.”

One of Hall’s co-conspirators, Bruce Webster, was also sentenced to death, but a court vacated the punishment last year due to his intellectual disability. Three others, including Hall’s brother, cooperated at his trial and received lesser sentences.

Rene’s sister, meanwhile, said the execution capped a “very long and painful chapter” in the family’s lives, the Tribune-Star reported.

https://nypost.com/2020/11/20/drug-trafficker-executed-for-raping-teen-burying-her-alive/