Prosecutors Won't Seek Death For UMD Hate Crime Defendant: Report

Prosecutors will not attempt to seek the death penalty for a University of Maryland student accused of killing a black Bowie State University student, according to a report.

WTOP reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation says they failed to find enough evidence to warrant federal hate crime charges against Sean Urbanski, accused of killing U.S. Army Lieutenant Richard Collins III.

Urbanski still faces charges for first-degree murder and committing a hate crime resulting in death in the state of Maryland, according to the report. However, the max penalty for convictions on those charges is life in prison with no chance of parole (murder) and 20 years (hate crime). It would take federal charges to make him eligible for execution.

Collins was killed while visiting UMD's College Park campus on May 20, 2017, days before his graduation from Bowie State. He was stabbed at 3 a.m. as he waited with two friends for an Uber at a bus stop, according to reports.

The FBI decided there was not enough evidence of a hate crime, even after racist cartoons and posts from a now-deleted white supremacist Facebook group emerged, WTOP reported.

Prosecutors allege that Collins was visiting friends at the university when Urbanski stabbed Collins in an unprovoked attack. Urbanski's affiliation with that Facebook page prompted authorities to charge him with a hate crime, but his lawyers argue that is unfair, and instead put forward the theory that alcohol and substance abuse was possibly to blame.