Boston Marathon Bomber's Death Sentence Reimposed by Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is reinstating the death sentence for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The justices voted 6-3 on Friday (March 4), agreeing with the Biden administration’s arguments that a federal appeals court was wrong to throw out the death sentence that a jury imposed on him for his role in the bombing that killed three people at the Boston marathon in 2013, via AP.

Click inside to read more…

“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.

The court reversed the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which ruled in 2020 that the trial judge improperly excluded evidence that could have shown that he was deeply influenced by his older brother, Tamerlan, and was somehow less responsible.

In dissent for the court’s three liberal justices, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, “In my view, the Court of Appeals acted lawfully in holding that the District Court should have allowed Dzhokhar to introduce this evidence.”

The now 28-year-old is unlikely to be executed anytime soon, as the Justice Department halted federal executions last summer after the Trump administration carried out 13 executions in its last six months.

President Joe Biden said he opposes the death penalty, but his administration defended the sentence at the Supreme Court. The ruling determined whether he should be put to death or imprisoned for life.

The convicted murderer was previously found guilty of all 30 charges, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction.