High-profile attorney named to synagogue case

the worst anti-Semitic attack in the history of the United States.

Mr. Bowers, who has been represented by the federal public defenders office in early court proceedings, is entitled to at least one attorney who is “learned in the law applicable to capital cases,” according to the court filings.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Pennsylvania said it is seeking the death penalty for Mr. Bowers, and in December it asked for extra time to review the case for possible death penalty designation by the Department of Justice.

Judge Ambrose set an April 18 deadline for discovery material to be produced.

When it is ready, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will submit information about the case to the justice department’s capital review committee about whether Mr. Bowers should face the death penalty. The defense will have a chance to respond.

The capital review process takes at least 90 days from the time of submission of a case for review and a decision by the attorney general.

All filings in the case will remain sealed.

Ms. Clarke, who could not be reached Wednesday, has served as a defense attorney in some of the most high-profile death penalty cases in the past quarter century.

Although Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death — which he is in the process of appealing — Ms. Clarke’s clients have a history of avoiding placement on death row.

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison in exchange for not being sentenced to die.

Ms. Clarke also represented Buford Furrow, who killed one person and injured five others in a shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles in 1999. Furrow also was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to avoid the death penalty.

Other clients of Ms. Clarke who have avoided the death penalty include: Eric Rudolph, who bombed the 1996 Olympics, abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, killing two people and injuring more than 100 others; Jared Loughner, who killed six people and injured 14 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011; and Susan Smith, who drowned her two young sons in South Carolina in 1994.

Ms. Clarke served from 2002 to 2009 as the Capital Resource Counsel for the Federal Public and Community Defender Program of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel. The counsel is a program of the Defender Services Office of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts designed to assist with matters relating to the defense function in federal capital cases at the trial level.