El Paso (Texas), Mar 26 (AP) The gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 in one of the the deadliest mass shootings in US history has been offered a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, a Texas prosecutor said on Tuesday.

The announcement by El Paso County district attorney James Montoya is a significant turn in the criminal case of Patrick Crusius, 26, who was already sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty in 2023 to federal hate crime charges.

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Under the previous Joe Biden administration, federal prosecutors also took the death penalty off the table but did not explain why.

In addition to the federal case, Crusius was also charged in state court with one count of capital murder of multiple people and also multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon. (AP)

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(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)