But his lawyers won an appeal of the death sentence on grounds that jurors had not sufficiently heard arguments about how Tsarnaev was deeply under the influence of his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed while fleeing the bombing.
They also argued the jury had been swayed by dramatic media reports. The Justice Department under former President Donald Trump rejected those arguments and appealed to the high court to reinstate execution in the high-profile case. But the Supreme Court only heard the arguments on Wednesday, three months after the department, revamped by President Joe Biden, declared a moratorium on federal executions. If the appellate ruling were affirmed, Tsarnaev would have to face a new sentencing trial if the Biden administration decided to continue pressing for a death sentence.
The Supreme Court is set to hear the federal government's appeal of a lower court ruling overturning Tsarnaev's death sentence and requiring a new trial to determine whether he should get life in prison instead. Two ethnic Chechen brothers carried out one of the most shocking attacks on U. Tsarnaev, who is 28 now and was 19 at the time, and his older brother Tamerlan detonated two homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon's finish line on April 15, After four days in hiding in the Boston area, the brothers tried to flee, killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with police that ended when his younger brother ran him over with a stolen car. Jurors in found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 counts he faced and later determined he deserved execution for a bomb he planted that killed Lu and Richard.
The Boston-based 1st U. Circuit Court of Appeals last year ruled that the trial judge "fell short" in screening jurors for potential bias following pervasive news coverage of the bombing and ordered a new death-penalty phase trial. The six conservative members appeared open to the argument that the death penalty should be reimposed and that the original trial judge acted properly.
But the three liberal justices appeared sympathetic to arguments that Tsarnaev played a lesser role in the bombing and that evidence to that effect should not have been excluded from the trial. President Joe Biden has spoken out against federal executions, which the former Trump administration resumed carrying out last year.
Even so, Biden's deputy solicitor general, Eric Feigin, urged the high court to reimpose the death penalty, describing Tsarnaev as a "motivated terrorist who willingly maimed and murdered innocents, including an 8-year-old boy, in furtherance of jihad. Tsarnaev's lawyer, Ginger Anders, countered that her client, who was 19 at the time of the bombing, was less responsible for the bombing because he was influenced by his older brother and co-bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who allegedly masterminded the deadly attack.
Four days after the bombing, Tamerlan died of gunshot wounds and SUV injuries after a car chase and shootout with police. The U. Department of Justice under both the Trump and Biden administrations appealed the ruling.
On April 15, , Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev placed two homemade "pressure cooker" bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon that exploded as runners of the kilometer mile race arrived.
A massive manhunt ensued. This Boston Marathon bombing survivor is on a mission to give fellow amputees the prosthetic legs insurance won't cover. In July , a federal appeals court said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would remain in prison for the rest of his life for "unspeakably brutal acts" but that he should be given a new penalty-phase trial, citing issues concerning juror selection and pretrial publicity as well as the exclusion of evidence that may have helped his case.
The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the death penalty with directions to hold a new penalty-phase trial but warned: "Make no mistake" -- Tsarnaev "will spend his remaining days locked up in prison.
A lawyer for the Biden administration on Wednesday called Tsarnaev a "terrorist" who acted in "furtherance of Jihad" and urged the justices to restore the jury's recommendation of death after the "carnage at the finish line.
The justices spent most of their time focusing on the evidence that a district court excluded from the penalty phase of the trial. Tsarnaev's lawyers sought to compel discovery about an unsolved triple murder that had occurred in in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Investigators came to suspect a friend of Tamerlan, Ibragim Todashev, as being involved in the crime. Todashev initially denied involvement to agents, but eventually asked for a deal. He said he had been involved but that Tamerlan had actually committed the murders by slitting the throats of the victims. Todashev had begun to write a confession but then attacked the agents who shot and killed him.
Dzhokhar's lawyers sought to include the evidence because they argued it supported their proposition that their client did not deserve the death penalty, because he was only acting under the direction of his older brother who played a much greater role in executing the bombings at the marathon, as evidenced by his past experience. In court Wednesday, Tsarnaev's lawyer Ginger Anders said it was "central to the mitigation case" demonstrating that the brothers were not equal partners in the crime.
She said that the district court's error compromised safeguards needed to ensure that her client received an appropriate penalty.
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