Attorneys for convicted Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers have filed an appeal with the Third Circuit Court, seeking at least a resentencing for their client, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
In a 500-page motion submitted earlier this month, the federal public defenders representing Bowers raised 16 issues they claim justify a new sentencing phase. Among the concerns: that some jurors were improperly excluded, another was wrongly accepted, and that Bowers was unjustly shackled midway through the trial over vague security concerns from US marshals.
Bowers was convicted in June 2023 on all 63 charges stemming from the October 27, 2018, shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, in which 11 worshippers were murdered. The jury found him eligible for the death penalty in July 2023, and on August 3, unanimously sentenced him to death.
US District Judge Robert J. Colville, who presided over the trial, dismissed Bowers’ initial appeal in early 2024. It took his legal team nearly two years to finalize this new appeal, which they say was delayed by the need to review five years of pretrial motions and three months of testimony.
According to the filing, some arguments concern technical legal matters, while others were raised during the trial itself or in prior appeals. Defense attorneys contend that prosecutors improperly excluded potential jurors who were Black, Hispanic, or Jewish, and that the defense lacked adequate time to argue such objections. They also allege prosecutors dismissed jurors opposed to the death penalty who nonetheless stated they could follow the law if the prosecution met its burden.
The appeal further challenges the inclusion of one juror who admitted to having reviewed death sentences and supervised executions in China. “Though defense counsel questioned Juror 119 about her work in China and views on the death penalty - and challenged her for cause - the court misapprehended the issue as simply whether she could apply American rather than Chinese law and failed to consider whether she was biased,” the attorneys wrote.
One of the more striking claims concerns the decision by Judge Colville to have Bowers shackled during the guilt phase of the trial. The appeal asserts the decision, ostensibly made due to “security concerns” expressed by US marshals, unfairly prejudiced the jury. Defense lawyers argued they were not given a full explanation until months after the trial ended, and that their objections during proceedings were dismissed.
Federal prosecutors now have 90 days to file their response to the appeal.
During the trial, in an attempt to persuade jurors to spare his life, the defense said Bowers has a family history of mental illness and has introduced evidence that his father, Randall Bowers, was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Lawyers for Bowers had argued previously that he had psychotic, delusional and paranoid symptoms that made him unable to understand the world or make appropriate decisions.