The panel of prospective jurors who will hear the case against a man accused of killing 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue is set.

After 17 days of questioning over four weeks, 69 people have moved into the pool from which 12 jurors and six alternates will be selected to decide the fate of Robert Bowers.

The final phase of selection will be completed on May 25. Testimony in the case will likely begin after Memorial Day. The guilt phase of the trial before U.S. District Judge Robert Colville is expected to last about three weeks, while a sentencing phase is slated for six weeks.

Bowers, 50, of Baldwin, is charged with 63 federal counts, including that he killed the victims as they worshipped. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The victims were members of three congregations at the synagogue at Wilkins and Shady avenues: Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light.

Killed in the attack were Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Dan Stein, 71; Irving Younger, 69; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Joyce Fienberg, 75; Melvin Wax, 87; Richard Gottfried, 65; and Rose Mallinger, 97.

Two additional congregants were shot and wounded, and five police officers were injured, including four wounded by gunfire.

The parties will meet on May 25 to use their peremptory strikes, at which times they can eliminate a potential juror from the pool for any legal reason.

Nathan Williams, a former federal prosecutor who led the case against the man accused of killing nine Black people at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, said that the striking process will likely be completed in a day.

In his case, he said, the parties alternated strikes, going back and forth. Although that can go quickly, Williams said that it is likely there will be motions, especially from the defense, asking for the government to justify the basis for their strikes to ensure they aren’t being used for impermissible reasons, like race, ethnicity and gender.

“That could end up taking longer than the actual strike process,” he said.

In a federal capital case, the prosecution and defense each get 20 peremptory challenges.

The panel of potential jurors is heavily white — with 29 white women and 33 white men. There are two Black men and two Black women.

Among those up for consideration, there are nurses, teachers, a corrections officer, a paralegal, people who work in construction, people who have lost family members to gun violence and those who have experience with mental illness.

At least two of the prospective jurors are over age 70, and there are several who characterized themselves as Jewish, Catholic or Christian.

The process for picking the pool of potentially eligible jurors was slow but steady, running over the course of 17 court days, with about 15 people being questioned during separate morning and afternoon sessions.

Following the questioning of each of the 214 prospective jurors, the parties were given the opportunity to make a motion to strike for cause or hardship.

About 100 people who reported for questioning were dismissed based on hardships, including having prepaid, nonrefundable vacations scheduled over the summer. Others were granted hardship dismissals because they would not get paid by their employers during jury duty or because they are caregivers to older parents or young children — and in a few cases have a baby on the way.

Motions to strike for cause were often made based on a prospective juror’s unwillingness to even consider a death sentence, or, at the other end of the spectrum, their belief that Bowers’ sentence should automatically be death.

The judge then ruled on those motions, typically the next day.

If they were denied, that person became eligible for the jury pool.

Out of the 69 people in the pool, 45 of those eligible were not subject to any motions for hardship or cause.

The focus during voir dire was heavily on the prospective jurors’ feelings about capital punishment, whether the person would be open to handing down such a verdict, and whether they would consider evidence in mitigation that might sway them to sentence Bowers to life in prison without the chance of release.

On the original questionnaires that 1,500 prospective jurors filled out in March, they were asked to rate their feelings on the death penalty on a scale of 1 (strongly opposed) to 10 (strongly in favor).

Broadly, those who rated themselves 5, 6 and 7 are most commonly represented in the eligible pool, but at least two people who ranked themselves a 10 are included, and at least four who said they were a 9.

“An individual juror can have strong opinions, so long as they can set the opinions aside and be fair and impartial when considering the case and evidence,” Williams said. “Individuals with strong opinions may be excellent jurors since strong opinions can be evidence of engagement and critical thinking, which tend to be good juror traits.”

One man who made the pool said during questioning: “I can tell you, honestly, what my opinion is now. I feel 95% he would be guilty, and he would be in line for the death penalty. That’s my opinion right now.”

But after additional questioning, he said he would consider mitigation and believes he could render a verdict. The judge in that instance denied a defense motion to strike for cause.

On the other side of that, one man who ranked himself a 3 on the death penalty scale said he struggled with the concept.

“Human life is precious,” he said. “Even if the cause is just, is that the right reason to do it?”

Barry Disney, one of the prosecutors on the case, asked him: “Do your beliefs realistically preclude you from [finding] death?”

“If you need someone with certainties on this thing, then it’s not me,” the man answered. “I wish I could tell you yes or no. It’s difficult, but I won’t say it’s impossible.”

The government made a motion to strike that juror, but Colville denied it.

Several of the people who are in the pool said they would not want to impose the death penalty, but that they could follow the court’s instructions to weigh the aggravating evidence against the mitigating evidence before reaching a conclusion.

To reach a verdict of death, the jurors must find that the government’s aggravating evidence — for example that the victims were targeted because of their religion — outweighs any mitigating evidence presented by the defense.

On the jury questionnaire, it suggested that mitigating evidence could include information about a difficult childhood or mental illness.

But during questioning by the defense, attorney Matthew Rubenstein would often give other examples of mitigation. Among the most frequent he suggested were as simple as the defendant doing well in prison, and that his mother loves him.

Another common question from the defense was asking the prospective jurors to pretend they were the ruler of their own country, and then asking if they would have the death penalty in it.

More often than not, the answer was yes.

During the week leading up to when the parties meet to exercise their peremptory challenges, Bowers is expected to undergo psychiatric testing by experts retained by the government to be used if he offers a mental health defense during the trial’s sentencing phase.

That evaluation, Colville said, must be completed over the course of 4-1/2 days.

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