Sayfullo Saipov, responsible for the death of eight people in an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack, was sentenced to life in prison Monday after a New York jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on his sentence. Saipov had been convicted on 28 counts by the same jury in January 2023. Saipov was facing the death penalty, but the jury’s deadlock resulted in the automatic sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

On October 31, 2017, Saipov drove a truck along a bike lane and pedestrian walkway in Manhattan, hitting multiple pedestrians and eventually colliding with a school bus. After the collision, police officers took Saipov into custody and found an abundance of ISIS propaganda on Saipov’s cell phone.

Saipov told law enforcement that he had been “inspired” by ISIS to carry out the attack and had been planning it for a year. Eight people were killed, and many others were injured in the attack. Saipov was charged with murder for gaining access to a racketeering enterprise, assault with a dangerous weapon, providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death, and 25 other offenses.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a statement following Saipov’s sentencing, suggesting that the jury’s inability to come to a unanimous decision is evidence that the country is moving away from the death penalty. The ACLU encouraged the federal government to impose a moratorium on death penalty trials, saying that the death penalty “does not represent our national values.”