Investigators came to suspect a friend of Tamerlan, Ibragim Todashev, as being involved in the crime. 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.Īnders sought to compel discovery about an unsolved triple murder that had occurred in 2011 in Waltham, Massachusetts. Over the years, survivors and family members have split on whether Tsarnaev should get the death penalty. Currently, there is a moratorium on federal executions as the government studies the issue. It is unclear whether Tsarnaev would actually be put to death given the Biden administration’s position on the federal death penalty. 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.”
The Trump administration had initially asked the Supreme Court to step in and reinstate the original sentence. Tamerlan would later die in a gunfight with police, but Dzhokhar is being held in federal prison in Florence, Colorado, following his guilty verdict. Hundreds were injured after Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan set off two shrapnel bombs near the finish line, leaving the sidewalks strewn with BBs, nails, metal scraps and glass fragments. 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.
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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. The justices’ ruling reversed a federal appeals court that had wiped away the death sentence for Tsarnaev and ordered a new penalty-phase trial. “The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury.
“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.