Justices Seem Set to Revive Marathon Bomber’s Death Sentence
The Supreme Court sounded ready Wednesday to reinstate the death penalty for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
In more than 90 minutes of arguments, the court’s six conservative justices seemed likely to embrace the Biden administration’s argument that a federal appeals court mistakenly threw out Tsarnaev’s death sentence for his role in the bombing that killed three people near the finish line of the marathon in 2013.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled last year that the trial judge improperly excluded evidence that could have shown Tsarnaev was deeply influenced by his older brother, Tamerlan, and was somehow less responsible for the carnage. The appeals court also faulted the judge for not sufficiently questioning jurors about their exposure to extensive news coverage of the bombing.
The court’s three liberal justices appeared more favorable to Tsarnaev. If the appellate ruling were affirmed, Tsarnaev would have to face a new sentencing trial if the administration decided to continue pressing for a death sentence.
Tsarnaev’s guilt in the deaths of Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts; and 8-year-old Martin Richard, of Boston, is not at issue, only whether he should be sentenced to life in prison or to death.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the only member of the court to raise the administration’s pursuit of a capital sentence for Tsarnaev even as it has halted federal executions. President Joe Biden also has called for an end to the federal death penalty.
Barrett wondered about the “government’s end game,” noting that if the administration wins the case, Tsarnaev would be “living under a death sentence the government doesn’t intend to carry out.”
A convicted murderer who is pleading with a jury to lock him up for life, rather than vote for his execution, has wide leeway to present evidence that he thinks would make a death sentence less likely.
The 2011 killings, defense lawyers said, went to the heart of their argument that Tsarnaev was deeply influenced and radicalized by his revered brother, who already had shown a capacity for extreme violence. The younger sibling was less responsible for the marathon mayhem, they said.
“The evidence thus made it vastly more likely that Dzhokhar acted under Tamerlan’s radicalizing influence and that Tamerlan led the bombings,” Ginger Anders, Tsarnaev’s leading Supreme Court lawyer, wrote in a high-court filing.
For its part, the administration contends that it does not contest the older brother’s leadership role, and that defense lawyers were able to make that case. Still, the jury sentenced Tsarnaev to death, acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher wrote.
Tsarnaev “made the choice to commit a terrorist attack against children and other innocent spectators at the marathon, and the jury held him accountable for that choice,” Fletcher wrote.
Two years after the attack, the parents of the youngest victim wrote an essay printed on the front page of The Boston Globe urging the Justice Department to abandon its pursuit of the death penalty. Denise and Bill Richard wrote that years of appeals that would keep Tsarnaev’s name in the news would force them to keep reliving their ordeal and prevent them from beginning to heal.
“As long as the defendant is in the spotlight, we have no choice but to live a story told on his terms, not ours. The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family,” they wrote.
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