Madeline Sponsler, FISM News
A federal appeals court on Friday overturned Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence for helping carry out the 2013 attack, which killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that the federal government should seek the death penalty again.
In a tweet, Trump said the federal government must challenge a Friday appeals court decision overturning the death penalty for the 2013 attack.
….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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2020
A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of Tsarnaev’s conviction Friday but ordered a new trial over what sentence Tsarnaev should receive for the death penalty-eligible crimes he was convicted of.
The federal government is reviewing the ruling. Prosecutors could ask the full appeals court to reconsider or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, set off a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the world-renowned race in 2013, tearing through the packed crowd, killing three people and wounding more than 260 others.
Tsarnaev admitted to his crimes after his conviction in 2015 and apologized to the victims.
Tsarnaev and his older brother set off a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the world-renowned race, tearing through the packed crowd and causing many people to lose legs.
A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of Tsarnaev’s conviction but ordered a new trial over what sentence Tsarnaev should receive for the death penalty-eligible crimes he was convicted of.
U.S. Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, writing for the court, said the trial judge “fell short” in conducting the jury selection process and screening jurors for potential bias following pretrial publicity surrounding the high-profile case.
Thompson said the pervasive news coverage of the bombings and their aftermath featured “bone-chilling” photos and videos of Tsarnaev, now 27, and his brother carrying backpacks at the marathon and of those injured and killed near its finish line.
Thompson said the judge deemed jurors eligible who had “already formed an opinion that Dzhokhar was guilty – and he did so in large part because they answered ‘yes’ to the question whether they could decide this high-profile case based on the evidence.”
Thompson stressed the ruling’s limits, saying “Make no mistake: Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution”.
David Patton, Tsarnaev’s lawyer, said prosecutors must now decide “whether to put the victims and Boston through a second trial or to allow closure to this terrible tragedy by permitting a sentence of life without the possibility of release.”
U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling’s spokeswoman said his office is reviewing the decision. Prosecutors could ask the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tsarnaev is being held at the United States’ “Supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado. This is reportedly a site so remote and well secured that it is nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”
Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan sparked five days of panic in Boston on April 15, 2013, when they detonated two homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon’s finish line and then went into hiding.
Three nights later, as they attempted to flee the city, they sparked a new round of terror in Boston when they hijacked a car and shot dead Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier. Tsarnaev’s brother died later that night after a gunfight with police, which ended when Dzhokhar ran him over with a stolen car.
Police then locked down Boston and most surrounding communities for almost 24 hours, with heavily armed officers conducting house-to-house searches through the suburb of Watertown, where the surviving brother was found hiding in a dry-docked boat in a backyard.
A jury in 2015 found Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 counts he faced and later determined he deserved execution for a bomb he planted that killed 8-year-old Martin Richard and 23-year-old Chinese exchange student Lingzi Lu. Restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, was also killed.
On the day of his sentencing, Tsarnaev admitted his crimes.
“I am sorry for the lives I have taken, for the suffering that I have caused you, for the damage I have done, irreparable damage,” said Tsarnaev. “In case there is any doubt, I am guilty of this attack, along with my brother.”
Sourced from Reuters American Wire, Twitter