What comes next for Pittsburgh synagogue gunman's appeal
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Pittsburgh synagogue gunman Robert Bowers is appealing his conviction in the brutal murder of 11 innocent worshippers five years ago and is asking for a new trial.
Audrey Glickman survived the synagogue massacre by burying herself beneath a pile of clothes in a storage room as her friends and fellow worshipers were brutally murdered.
"He brutally murdered 11 innocent people up close and personal in a synagogue during a service. That fills the things he was trying to argue against," Glickman said.
Bowers is on federal death row in the maximum security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, but his attorneys have filed an appeal of his conviction, seeking his acquittal on several charges and a new trial on the others.
In it, they argued Bowers' murder spree was not motivated by ethnic hate or to impede the free exercise of a religion as he was charged, but rather to stop a Jewish organization from bringing so-called immigrant invaders into the U.S.
Glickman calls the difference semantic.
"He definitely restricted my ability to practice my religion that day," she said.
Most of the appeal centers on the makeup of the jury, which consisted almost entirely of white men and women except for one Asian woman. The appeal cites the government's rejection of six potential jurors -- four African-Americans, one Hispanic and one Jewish.
While government prosecutors say they were rejected because of their stance on the death penalty, Bowers' lawyers question whether their rejection was "motivated by racially discriminatory intent."
But St. Vincent College law professor Bruce Antkowiak doesn't believe that argument will fly.
"The ultimate decision is whether there was evidence in the record that the government strike of those jurors was based on the race or ethnicity of the juror. And if the judge examined all the evidence before and said, 'No, I don't find there was, the government had reason for this,' that makes it very difficult to sustain that on appeal," he said.
Federal prosecutors will now respond to the motion to appeal, but for now, the gunman remains on federal death row for the foreseeable future.