The US Justice Department (DOJ) asked the US Supreme Court on Tuesday to reinstate the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The DOJ argues that the Supreme Court should reinstate the penalty to give deference to the trial court’s decision, prevent new jurors from enduring a longer jury selection process, and protect victims from having to recount their experiences during trial:
The decision below improperly vacated the capital sentences recommended by the jury and imposed by the district court in one of the most important terrorism prosecutions in our Nation’s history. In doing so, the court of appeals announced an unexpected and inflexible voir dire rule that denies district courts the broad discretion to manage juries that this Court’s precedents provide. The court of appeals similarly failed to give adequate deference to the district court’s discretionary judgment that any minimal probative value of evidence concerning [Tsarnaev’s brother] and the independent Waltham murders was outweighed by the risk of confusing the jury as it considered the appropriate sentence for respondent’s own horrific crimes. Although the court of appeals’ errors are largely case-specific, the context of this case makes them exceptionally significant. To reinstate the sentences that the jury and the district court found appropriate for respondent’s heinous acts, the government will have to retry the penalty phase of the case; the court will have to conduct (and prospective jurors will have to undergo) a voir dire that will presumably be much longer and more onerous than the original 21-day proceeding; and the victims will have to once again take the stand to describe the horrors that respondent inflicted on them. Given the profound stakes of the erroneous vacatur of respondent’s capital sentences, the First Circuit should not have the last word. This Court should grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and put this landmark case back on track toward its just conclusion.
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned Tsarnaev’s death sentence in August, citing concerns over improper jury screening, and ordered a new trial.
President Donald Trump endorsed the death penalty for Tsarnaev via Twitter following the appeals court decision:
Rarely has anybody deserved the death penalty more than the Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The court agreed that this “was one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks since the 9/11 atrocities”. Yet the appellate court tossed out the death sentence. So many lives lost and ruined. The Federal Government must again seek the Death Penalty in a do-over of that chapter of the original trial. Our Country cannot let the appellate decision stand. Also, it is ridiculous that this process is taking so long!
The Supreme Court has not yet acted on the DOJ’s request to hear the case.
