Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting | Jewish community split on views regarding death penalty

Jurors are continuing to deliberate the fate of the convicted Pittsburgh synagogue shooter

PITTSBURGH — As jurors deliberate on the fate of the convicted shooter who killed 11 Jewish worshippers in the Tree of Life Synagogue, the Jewish community is split on its support of the death penalty.

In mid-April, before the trial started, sisters Michele and Diane Rosenthal, sisters to two shooting victims David and Cecil Rosenthal, told reporters that a majority of the victims' families are in support of capital punishment in this case.

"We don't want to be here, and we know the emotional toll this trial potentially brings, but we owe it to our brothers Cecil and David," Diane Rosenthal said at the time.

The sisters pointed to a 2021 letter, in which several families wrote to the attorney general, stating the same.

In a 2014 survey, the Public Religion Research Institute asked Americans what penalty they would choose in cases where a person is convicted of murder.

33% of Jewish respondents said they would choose the death penalty, while 57% said they would rather the person be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The average of all Americans was 44% and 48%, respectively.

However, that poll was conducted before the deadliest attack on Jews in the history of the United States.

As the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial continued into the summer months, L'Chaim, Jews Against the Death Penalty, demonstrated downtown.

"If they get a death sentence in a case, what they're doing is asking the victims' families to wait decades for an execution that may come, to put your healing on pause for decades," said Abraham Bonowitz, a group representative who spoke to the press.

Source: wtae.com, Tom Garris, August 1, 2023

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

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Florida executes James Duckett

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The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

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Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

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