Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

USA - Supreme Court upholds death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

March 4, 2022:

Supreme Court upholds death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 1 of the 2 brothers responsible for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing which led to the deaths of 3 spectators and a police officer, reversing a lower court decision.
The ruling was 6-3 along conservative-liberal lines.
The justices' ruling reversed a federal appeals court that had wiped away the death sentence for Tsarnaev and ordered a new penalty-phase trial. At the time, the lower court said that Tsarnaev would remain in prison for the rest of his life for an "unspeakable brutal act," but that the trial court had made mistakes regarding issues related to pretrial publicity, as well as the exclusion of evidence that might have helped Tsarnaev's case.
Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 in the deaths of Krystle Campbell, Martin Richard and Lingzi Lu at the marathon and Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier several days later, among other charges. Hundreds were injured after Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan set off two shrapnel bombs near the finish line.
Tamerlan would later die in a gunfight with police.
The Trump administration had initially asked the Supreme Court to step in and reinstate the original sentence. The Biden administration renewed the request, calling Tsarnaev a "terrorist" who acted in "furtherance of Jihad" and urging the justices to restore the jury's recommendation of death after the "carnage at the finish line."
It is unclear whether Tsarnaev would actually be put to death given the Biden administration's position on the federal death penalty. Currently, there is a moratorium on federal executions as the government studies the issue.
Ginger D. Anders, a lawyer for Tsarnaev, had argued that there is no dispute that the bombings were a "grievous and shocking act of terrorism" but she said the lower court made two "serious errors" which compromised safeguards needed to ensure that her client received an appropriate penalty.
Anders sought to compel discovery about an unsolved triple murder that had occurred in 2011 in Waltham, Massachusetts. Investigators came to suspect a friend of Tamerlan, Ibragim Todashev, as being involved in the crime. Todashev initially denied involvement to agents but eventually asked for a deal. He said he had been involved but that Tamerlan had actually committed the murders by slitting the throats of the victims. Todashev had begun to write a confession but then attacked the agents who shot and killed him.
Anders sought to include the evidence because she argued it supported the proposition that her client did not deserve the death penalty, because he was only acting under the direction of his older brother who played a much greater role in executing the bombings at the marathon, as evidenced by his past experience.
Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for his liberal colleagues, Justice Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said in dissent on Friday that they believed the evidence should have been heard by the jury. On the Tsarnaev see also HoC 01/05/2013, 16/09/2013, 29/01/2014, 05/01/2015, 04/03/2015, 23/03/2015, 08/04/2015, 10/04/2015, 13/04/2015, 21/04/2015, 15/05/2015, 28/05/2015, 24/06/2015, 31/07/2020, 15/06/2021, 16/06/2021.

http://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_107db104cc3e7dfa2cf0bc2077e1efd6