Frein sentenced to die for shooting two troopers

A jury on Wednesday condemned Eric Frein to die for shooting two Pennsylvania troopers at their barracks, killing one and leaving a second with devastating injuries.

Frein, 33, was sentenced by a jury to death by lethal injection a week after his conviction on charges including murder of a law enforcement officer and terrorism.

Prosecutors said Frein was hoping to start an uprising against the government when he opened fire with a rifle on the Blooming Grove barracks in the Pocono Mountains on Sept. 12, 2014. Cpl. Bryon Dickson II was killed, and Trooper Alex Douglass was critically wounded.

Frein led police on a 48day manhunt in the Poconos before U.S. Marshals caught him at an abandoned airplane hangar.

He did not take the witness stand in his own defense, nor did he ask the jury to spare his life in the penalty phase. His lawyers had argued for a sentence of life in prison without parole, presenting evidence he’d grown up in a dysfunctional home.

Prosecutors portrayed Frein as a remorseless killer who randomly attacked in hopes of fomenting rebellion.

Though the gunman faces a bleak existence on death row, he likely won’t face execution for decades, if ever. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has imposed a moratorium on the death penalty, and Pennsylvania’s last execution took place in 1999.

Frein’s lawyers have promised to tie up his case in appeals.