It has been nearly five years since the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, and jury selection is now underway for the trial of Robert Bowers.
Attorney Marty Dietz joined the Big K Morning Show Tuesday morning to break down the process of selection.
“The judge will decide on what number of potential jurors he wants to seat,” Dietz said. “It’s usually 12 plus a number of alternates.”
The jury, according to Dietz, will essentially be determining the fate of Bowers, who could face the death penalty and has been charged with 63 federal crimes for the shooting that killed 11 people and injured six others.
He also has been charged with 36 state criminal counts, including 11 counts of criminal homicide, six counts of aggravated assault, six counts of attempted criminal homicide and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation.
“This isn’t a whodunit,” Dietz said. “What the defense attorneys are going to try to do is, during what we call the guilt phase, is front load mitigation evidence.
“They’re going to try to make the defendant as sympathetic as possible, through his background, his mental health condition, things like that, to persuade the jury during the guilt phase that we shouldn’t kill this guy.”
There are a number of elements that make this selection ‘complicated,’ according to Dietz. Whether jurors have ties to or biases towards law enforcement, as well as their knowledge of one of the biggest news stories in the region’s history, are all at play.
“That in and of itself is not enough to exclude a juror,” Dietz said of the publicity aspect of the case. “At the end of the day, the fight becomes whether a potential juror can listen to the judge’s instructions, follow the law, and impose an appropriate sentence in this case.”
Hear all of the Big K Morning Show’s interview with Marty Dietz here.