Death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev overturned by appeals court
- by Virginia Carter
- in World Media
- — Aug 2, 2020
Lawyers for Tsarnaev have acknowledged that he and his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed during the manhunt that followed the 2013 bombing, detonated two homemade pressure cooker bombs that killed three people and wounded at least 260 others near the finish line of the annual foot race.
A federal appeals court has overturned the death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, citing a tainted jury.
The death sentence was vacated - BUT there will be a new penalty phase of the trial where it's possible the new jury could still sentence him to death.
All three judges agreed that the death sentence should be tossed.
"Despite a diligent effort, the judge here did not meet the standard set", Thompson stated.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated. "And in any case, he won't be getting out and hasn't been able to harm anyone since he was captured".
According to the Globe, Bill Richard, whose 8-year-old son Martin died in the attack, declined to comment on the court's decision on Friday.
Former Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer Dic Donohue, who was severely injured in a gunfight with the brothers, said the ruling was not surprising to him.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 27, still faces life behind bars for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
The lawyers said one of the jurors, who eventually became the jury's foreperson-a chief spokesperson-had dozens of posts on her social media about the bombings that raised questions about her impartially.
On the day of his sentencing, Tsarnaev admitted his crimes.
Tsarnaev is being held at the United States' "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado, a site so remote and well secured that it is nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the Rockies".
"The defense warned the judge that asking only general questions like that would wrongly "make the potential jurors judges of their own impartiality.'"
The three-judge panel at the appeals court in Boston issued its decision more than six months after arguments were heard in the case.
Thompson said the judge deemed jurors eligible who had "already formed an opinion that Dzhokhar was guilty - and he did so in large part because they answered "yes" to the question whether they could decide this high-profile case based on the evidence". In a concurring opinion, Judge Juan Torruella wrote that the case should never have been tried in Boston.
During a campaign speech on the Tampa International Airport tarmac in Florida Friday afternoon, Trump denounced the court's ruling. "They just sent this conviction for the death penalty back to the lower courts so they'll argue about that for a long time".
"I am sorry for the lives I have taken, for the suffering that I have caused you, for the damage I have done, irreparable damage", Mr. Tsarnaev said.
