The US Supreme Court has reinstated the death sentence for Dzhokar Tsarnaev, one of those responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings.
In a 6-3 vote, the justices agreed with the Joe Biden administration’s arguments that a federal appeals court was wrong to throw out the death sentence, which a jury imposed on Tsarnaev for his role in the explosions that left three people dead near the finish line of the 2013 marathon.
“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. In any case, the Sixth Amendment (constitutional) guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He got one,” Minister Clarence Thomas wrote on behalf of the majority, made up of the court’s six conservative justices.
The highest court reversed the decision of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which ruled in 2020 that the trial judge improperly excluded evidence that might have shown Tsarnaev was deeply influenced by his older brother Tamerlan, and was somehow less responsible for the deaths and injuries that occurred.
The appeals court also censured the judge for not sufficiently questioning jurors regarding their exposure to extensive media coverage of the bombing.
In a dissent by the three liberal justices, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: “In my view, the Court of Appeals acted lawfully when it held that the District Court should have allowed Dzhokhar to present this evidence.”
Breyer has asked the court to reconsider the death sentence. “I have written elsewhere regarding the problems inherent in a system that allows the imposition of the death penalty… This case provides yet another example of some of those problems,” he wrote in a section of his dissent, not joined by his liberal colleagues, the ministers Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
The chance of an early execution for Tsarnaev, now 28, is remote. The Justice Department last summer suspended federal executions following the Trump administration carried out 13 in its last six months.
Biden has stated his opposition to the death penalty, but his administration found itself in the position of defending Tsarnaev’s sentence in the Supreme Court.
The appeal was initially filed during the Trump administration, though Biden’s team gave no indication of a change in stance before the court agreed to hear the case nearly a year ago.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that Biden has clearly expressed “his serious concerns regarding capital punishment as implemented, but he respects the process and the current review that is being spearheaded by the Department of Justice and the Secretary of Justice”.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh also voted to reimpose Tsarnaev’s death sentence.