PITTSBURGH — The case in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial was handed to the jury Thursday afternoon.
The government presented its closing arguments in the morning, followed by the defense team for accused shooter Robert Bowers.
The jury of 12 men and women moved to deliberations around 2:30 p.m. Eastern time and left for the day around 5 p.m. Bowers faces 63 federal charges and the possibility of the death penalty in the Oct. 27, 2018 shooting in Squirrel Hill.
On Thursday morning, attorney Mary Hahn steered jurors through the horrors of that day.
She told them that the synagogue at the corner of Shady and Wilkins avenues was a sanctuary — a safe space for three congregations that worshiped there: Tree of Life, New Light, Dor Hadash.
Each had scores of congregants, she said, but Saturday mornings were different. Each congregation had a small, core group of worshipers. Most were elderly.
In the Pervin Chapel where Tree of Life worshiped, the Torah reading that day would focus on Abraham and Sarah welcoming a stranger into their tent.
“A stranger came to the Tree of Life,” Hahn said. “That stranger did not come to pray. That stranger did not come to worship.”
Bowers, she said, turned the “sacred house of worship into a hunting ground.”
The government’s closing arguments took jurors back through 11 days of testimony: The first-hand testimony from survivors, the harrowing descriptions from first responders, the damage the rifle bullets did to each victim’s body, and the hateful, antisemitic social media posts made by Bowers.
She called Bowers’ decisions and movements “cold, calculated, deliberate choices” that killed half of the people in the synagogue that morning in a matter of minutes.
Hahn went through each charge the jurors were presented with. She explained in detail why jurors should find that prosecutors proved their case in each and every charge. Those charges ranged from obstruction of religion resulting in death to hate crime-based counts alleging Bowers targeted the congregants because of their religion.
It was clear that those gathered at the synagogue that morning were there to worship, she said. It was clear when he walked down the stairs after shooting and killing multiple people on the main level, passing signs pointing the way to the New Light sanctuary. It was clear when he walked into the room and saw a Star of David emblazoned on a podium.
Behind two double doors, Carol Black, Barry Werber and Mel Wax hid in a dark storage area. Mel Wax peeked out, Hahn said, and Bowers opened fire. Not satisfied, Bowers opened the door and put his rifle to his chest, she said, reminding jurors of the contact gunshot wound that resulted.
In the kitchen, the long metal table that Richard Gottfriend and Dan Stein huddled against was no match for the AR-15, Hahn said.
She reminded jurors that three women were still alive in the Pervin Chapel when Bowers encountered the first responding officers — Dan Mead and Michael Smidga — at the synagogue’s glass front doors. Andrea Wedner and her 97-year-old mother, Rose Mallinger, hid beneath a pew. Bernice Simon sat in her usual pew, refusing to leave her mortally wounded husband.
Bowers shot Officer Mead and nearly shot Officer Smidga, Hahn said, and then made his way back to the chapel. He had to walk through the mezzanine twice, where bodies lay bloodied, to do so. On that floor lay Joyce Fienberg, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Jerry Rabinowitz and a gravely wounded Dan Leger.
“Twice through the blood and the carnage and the bodies he had already left there,” Hahn said. “It doesn’t stop him from killing again. He kept hunting. This shows a depth of hatred for these people who were only trying to pray.”
He shot downward at Wedner and her mother, killing the latter. He shot Bernice Simon through the heart. She died, Hahn said, next to her husband in the same pew they sat in week after week, year after year.
Hahn told jurors that Bowers laid in wait on the uppermost floors of the synagogue, setting up a classroom to his tactical advantage. He shot two SWAT officers, almost killing Officer Timothy Matson. She said Bowers surrendered, finally, shortly after 11 a.m., “not because he had a change of heart, not because he had any remorse, but because he had run out of rifle ammunition.”
“All these Jews need to die,” he said to officers. Officer Steve Mescan heard it, Hahn said. So did Officer Andrew Miller. It was written and implied throughout months of posts to the far-right website Gab leading up to the massacre, Hahn reminded the jury.
What happened that day is fact, said federal public defender Elisa A. Long.
“There is no dispute that on Oct. 27, 2018, Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue with an AR-15 … and shot every person he saw,” said Long, who is one of several attorneys on the defense team. “In the process, he killed 11 innocent people.
She told jurors to closely examine what Bowers’ actual intent was that morning — “why he did what he did and what he thought he would accomplish by doing so.”
Among the dozens of charges faced by Bowers are 11 counts of obstruction of the free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death. Long said that in order for him to be found guilty of those charges, jurors must find that Bowers had a “conscious desire” to keep those 11 victims from worshiping.
His real intent, she said, was to stop the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish faith-based refugee resettlement organization. Dor Hadash participated in HIAS programs. In Bowers mind, Long said, he needed to stop Dor Hadash from supporting HIAS, who he believed was bringing “invaders” into his country.
“None of this is true,” Long said, “but it is what Mr. Bowers believed.”
Eleven other federal charges hinge on the verdict for the 11 obstruction charges. If he is not guilty of obstruction, she said, he’s not guilty of the related firearms charges.
She pointed to his social media posts on the alt-right website Gab. Hundreds of posts took aim at “dirty,” “filthy,” “vile” Jews, but she drew jurors’ attention to several that specifically mentioned HIAS.
“Why hello there HIAS,” he wrote in one post. “You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us? We appreciate the list of friends you have provided.”
Attached to the post was a HIAS webpage listing congregations participating in the refugee Shabbat program.
He referenced HIAS in his last Gab post before entering the synagogue.
“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
That was at 9:49 a.m., investigators have said. He shot out a large window of the synagogue moments later.
“In his mind,” Long said, “he needed to kill Jews who supported HIAS.”
U.S. Attorney Eric G. Olshan, in his rebuttal to the defense, balked at the idea that HIAS was the target of Bowers’ hate.
“That man, Robert Bowers, went into the Tree of Life synagogue where three congregations, not just Dor Hadash, were worshiping,” he said. “He focused on any Jew he could find to kill or try to kill. You don’t have to conclude hatred of Jews was his only reason, just the determinative one.”
He cautioned jurors against Long’s “cherry-picked” Gab posts. He also told them to use “common sense” — a crime within a synagogue meant a crime based on religious beliefs.
From beneath the podium at which he spoke, Olshan pulled two small, clear baggies. In each was a piece of torn yarmulke — the yarmulke Irving Younger had been wearing when he was shot in the head.
He said the yarmulke is a witness to Oct. 27, 2018.
“You have the power to do justice here in this court of law,” he said. “The only justice is a verdict of guilty on every one of the 63 counts.”
Maggie Feinstein, director of the 10.27 Healing Partnership, said the Jewish community believes the jury will do just that.
“We’ve been here every day with the community, waiting for this process to come to a conclusion,” she said outside the federal courthouse after jurors went home for the evening. “I think at this point, the community feels very confident that the jury has been listening, paying attention — that the attorneys have done what they needed to do.”
Survivors, congregants and community members have cycled through the courtroom and designated overflow room throughout testimony. The small courtroom cannot hold everyone who has wanted to sit in on proceedings, and friends and family members have taken turns sitting in on the live testimony.
Feinstein said this phase of the trial has unpacked the full extent of the horror of the incident.
“It’s not just the victims who are starting to feel the impact as they see the orders of the event really laid out in front of them,” she said, nothing there’s been an influx of community members seeking the support services.
