Washington – The Supreme Court on Monday said it would take up the legal battle over the fate of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose death sentence was declared invalid by a lower court last year due to issues of media exposure before judges.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court in October to review the decision of a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and to request the judges not to allow the lower court to give ‘the last word’ , given the “profound interests” of the erroneous “decision to drop Tsarnaev’s main sentence.
The Supreme Court, the justice department said, should “put this important case back on track after its fair settlement” and reinstate its death sentence. The court is expected to hear arguments in the case in the next term, which begins in October.
The then Attorney General William Barr told The Associated Press in an interview after the lower court ruling that the Justice Department would continue the death penalty for Tsarnaev. But it is unclear whether this is the position of the Justice Department under President Biden, who is opposed to the death penalty.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated Monday that Biden “has serious concerns about whether the death penalty currently being implemented is in line with the values that are fundamental to our sense of justice and fairness.” But she said the government’s death penalty policy had not been updated and referred questions about the dispute to the justice department. The department declined to comment on Tsarnaev’s case.
Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed and injured three people. Tsarnaev’s lawyers admitted that he and his older brother, Tamerlan, detonated the two homemade bombs near the end of the race, but said Tamerlan Tsarnaev was the mastermind of the attack.
The brothers tried to flee the state after the bombing, which led to a days-long hunt that left Boston and its surrounding areas in a trap. Tsarnaev, now 27, was eventually arrested by police after hiding in a boat behind a house in Watertown, Massachusetts, while Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with officers as they pursued the brothers.
A federal grand jury has indicted Tsarnaev on 30 charges, including three counts of using a mass destruction weapon that resulted in death, and he was convicted of all offenses for committing the terrorist attack. The jury recommended it and the district court imposed the death penalty on six of the 17 capital counts.
Tsarnaev appealed, and the 1st Circuit upheld almost all of his convictions, with the exception of three. But the appellate court also dropped his death sentence and ordered a new sentencing.
The Boston court found that the district judge overseeing Tsarnaev’s trial had abused his discretion by asking prospective jurors to ask specific questions about the media coverage he or she had seen or read about the case. According to the 1st Circuit, the district court was wrong during the sentencing phase of the trial by excluding evidence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was allegedly involved in murders that took place two years before the bombing, which is the central theory of Tsarnaev’s lawyers that he acted, would strengthen. his brother’s influence.
The Trump administration’s decision to pursue the death penalty in Tsarnaev’s case was not entirely surprising. In the summer of 2019, Barr announces his intention to resume executions after a hiatus of nearly two decades over the execution of executions at the federal level.
In all, the Trump administration killed the executions of 13 prisoners, six of whom took place after Biden won the presidential election in November and before he was sworn in on January 20.
By requesting the Supreme Court to address its appeal last year, the Justice Department argued that the 1st Circle “improperly evacuated Tsarnaev’s death sentences” in one of the most important terrorist prosecutions in our country’s history “and warned that a new sentencing ‘charges on the victims of the 2013 attack.
“To reinstate the sentences appropriate to the jury and the district court for the heinous acts of the respondent, the government will have to retry the sentencing phase of the case; the court will (and prospective jurors will have to undergo) an unfavorable “It will probably be much longer and heavier than the original 21-day procedure, and the victims will again have to take the position to describe the atrocities inflicted on them by the respondent,” the then acting attorney general Jeffrey Wall told the court said a filing.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers asked the high court not to hear the dispute, arguing that the government would not benefit from reversing the lower court’s decision.