The decision to sentence a convicted prisoner to death should always make us pause.

The determination to take another’s life carries heavy moral and societal implications.

In Robert Bowers’ case, the path that led a federal jury to recommend death for the 50-year-old man convicted of perpetrating the deadliest attack ever on Jewish people in the United States took 4½ years.

While opinions on the sentence may differ, no one can deny the time, effort and anguish that went into excavating his act of hate.

His rampage at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill took 20 minutes. Starting at 9:50 a.m. on Oct. 27, 2018, until he surrendered at 11:08 a.m., Bowers’ hate-fueled attack killed 11 people who came to pray and injured six others, including four Pittsburgh police officers who came to rescue them.

The seven women and five men listened to 18 days of testimony about information gathered since the lives and security of the three congregations were shattered. They heard about the gunman’s family, mental state, childhood, his racists rants and his lack of remorse.

On June 16, the jury found Bowers guilty of 63 criminal counts, including hate crimes and capital murder. Then they attended two more phases — first to examine if he was eligible for the death penalty, and then to decide if he should receive life in prison or a death sentence.

The 115 mitigating factors offered up by his defense could not outweigh the evil of killing a 97-year-old great-grandmother, a couple who married 60 years before at the place of the massacre, or any of the worshippers who happened to be in his sights.

The jury learned all they could about Bowers before they decided his fate. He couldn’t see beyond his hate before he decided the fate of people he never met — Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Joyce Fienberg, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger, Bernice Simon and Sylvan Simon.

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Colville formally sentenced Bower to death Aug. 3 in a courtroom just down the road in Pittsburgh.

The brutal sentence is a judgment against hate, not a quick end to end Bower’s life. Our legal system gives the condemned a process to appeal that could take decades. He’ll join the 41 federal prisoners on death row in Terre Haute, Ind.

While awaiting his fate for the last 4½ years, Bowers has been held in the Butler County Prison. During his chance to appeal — something he never gave his victims — we can’t wait for him to leave our county, our region and our state.

— DJS