On Thursday, a Pennsylvanian federal judge rejected the request to resolve the charges against the man who was accused for openly firing in October 2018, at Tree of Life synagogue, that killed 11 people.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says, Robert Bowers was trying to get all the charges dropped against him, that involved the Church Arson Act and the Hate Crimes Protection Act, that, “infringe on a general police power reserved to the states by the Constitution.” Judge Donetta Ambrose of the U.S. District denied while writing her opinion in20 pages, that the federal law allowed by the dual-sovereign acts to, “criminalize conduct that falls within traditional areas of state law.”
According to the federal prosecutors, Bowers went into the synagogue with several guns. At the place the member of Tree of Life had gathered to worship. 11 people got themselves killed, while Bowers still attempted to shoot the law enforcements who were trying to rescue the people.
Bowers is charged with 63 criminal counts, some of them involved weapon charges and hate crimes that linked to 2018 mass shooting. The KDKA reports that the attorney of Bowers argued that the 11 people who died were Jewish, who weren’t enslaved by the United States, so the hate crime becomes inapplicable to them.
According to Ambrose, the Hate Crimes Protection Act falls under 13th Amendment, that abolished every kind of slavery from United States not just slavery of Africans.
The date of trial is pending for Bowers. He could even face death penalty.