SAN DIEGO—A 22-year-old former nursing student was denied a chance to address a courtroom before a judge sentenced him Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for bursting into a Southern California synagogue on the last day of Passover in 2019 with a semiautomatic rifle, killing one worshipper and wounding three others.
An agreement with prosecutors that spared John T. Earnest the death penalty left little suspense about the outcome, but the hearing provided 13 victims and families a chance to address the killer. Many gave heart-wrenching accounts of how their lives were upended and how determined they were to persevere despite such devastating loss.
