The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday reinstated the death sentence of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The conviction was for his role in the 2013 attach that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others, ruling in favor of the federal government.
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled along ideological lines and sided with the Justice Department’s challenge to a 2020 federal appeals court ruling, where the lower ruling had upheld Tsarnaev’s convection but overturned his death sentence. The Supreme Court found that the lower court was wrong in its decision over issues with jury selection and evidence that was excluded during the penalty phase of his trial, resulting in the overturn of the death penalty.
The Supreme Court faulted the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on its findings both that Tsarnaev’s right to a fair trial under the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment was violated and that the trial judge wrongly excluded certain evidence about a separate crime.
“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair rial before an impartial jury. He received one, “conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.
The court’s six conservative justices were in the majority, with its’ three liberals dissenting.
The Tsarnaev brothers detonated two homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon’s finish line on April 1, 2013, and days later killed a police officer. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after the gunfight with police.
Jurors convicted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 2015 on all 30 counts he faced and determined he deserved execution for a bomb he planted that killed Martin Richard, 8, and Chinese exchange student Lingzi Lu, 23. Restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, was killed by the second bomb. Marc Fucarile, who lost his right leg in the second blast, said the Supreme Court “did the right thing” and that the three justices who dissented “should be ashamed.” But Fucarile said he has no confidence that the death sentence would ultimately be carried out, especially under the Biden Administration.
“He got what he deserves,” said Fucarile, 43. “I think we need to send a message, you can’t just kill innocent people and set off bombs in crowds of people.”
President Joe Biden as a candidate promised to work to pass legislation in Congress to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and set incentives for states to do as well, instead endorsing life sentences without probation or parole. But his administration last year opted to proceed with an appeal initially launched by the Justice Department under his predecessor Donald Trump to defend Tsarnaev’s death sentence.