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How DOJ made different death penalty decisions in the Pittsburgh synagogue and Texas mall massacres

Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a meeting with all of the U.S. Attorneys to discuss violent crime reduction strategies at the Department of Justice in Washington on June 14. Contrasting decisions on whether gunmen should face a federal death sentence in massacres with so much in common illustrate the Justice Department’s murky, often baffling death penalty policies. Associated Press File Photo

CHICAGO — Two separate shootings 2,000 miles apart. One killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The other killed 23 at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Both were motivated by hate. Both involved gunmen who later claimed mental illness.

But earlier this year, the Justice Department authorized the death penalty only for the case in Pittsburgh, where jurors will soon answer the weightiest of questions: Should Robert Bowers be put to death?

Bowers’ trial is in the penalty phase after his June conviction for the 2018 antisemitic attack. A federal judge last Friday gave Patrick Crusius the maximum available sentence for the 2019 Walmart attack on Hispanics: life in prison. He pleaded guilty after the department took a death sentence off the table.

Contrasting decisions in such similar cases illustrates the department’s murky, often baffling and seemingly inconsistent death penalty policies. Department decision-making and the criteria it favors are also shrouded in secrecy.

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