Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is pictured in this handout photo presented as evidence by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, Massachusetts on March 23, 2015.
U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston | Reuters
The United States Supreme Court on Friday reinstated the death penalty sentence imposed on Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, reversing a lower court’s ruling.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court rejected defense arguments that the judge at Tsarnaev’s 2015 criminal trial incorrectly ruled on issues relating to the jury selection and evidence presented in the case.
“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the opinion of the court.
“The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is reversed,” Thomas wrote.
The vote split the court’s conservative supermajority from its three liberal members. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a dissent that “In my view, the Court of Appeals acted lawfully.”
Prosecutors had called the April 15, 2013, Boston bombings as “one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks since the 9/11 atrocities.”
Three people, including an 8-year-old child, were killed and hundreds were wounded when two pressure-cooker bombs filled with metal shrapnel detonated near the crowded marathon finish line. Dzhokhar, who was 19 at the time, and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, fled the scene, kicking off a four-day manhunt during which Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier was shot dead.
Tamerlan died in a gunfight with police in Watertown, Massachusetts. An injured Dhzokhar, who ran over his brother as he drove away in a stolen Mercedes, was found hours later hiding in a boat parked in a nearby backyard.
A jury in federal district court in Massachusetts convicted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on 30 counts, and recommended the death penalty for six of them. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in July 2020 canceled those capital sentences, finding errors with the district court’s proceedings.
Specifically, it found that the lower court wrongly denied requests from Tsarnaev’s attorneys to have prospective jurors asked about their media exposure to the facts of the case during the jury-selection process.
The appeals court also ruled that the district court erred by excluding evidence related to a triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts, on the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“The Government argues that the Court of Appeals improperly vacated Dzhokhar’s capital sentences,” Thomas wrote in Friday’s opinion. “We agree.”
“The District Court did not abuse its broad discretion by declining to ask about the content and extent of each juror’s media consumption regarding the bombings, .
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