A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the judge who oversaw the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to examine defense claims of jury bias and decide whether a death sentence should stand.
A three-judge panel of the Boston-based US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit did not overturn Tsarnaev’s death sentence.
His defense argued that he was biased by two jurors who convicted him of a bombing near the marathon finish line in 2013 that killed three people and injured hundreds. was.
However, the appeals court found that the trial judge had not properly investigated Tsarnaev’s allegations and sent the case back to the judge for a new investigation.
The appeals court will decide whether, if the judge decides that any juror should have been disqualified, he should vacate Tsarnaev’s sentence, hold a new penalty phase trial and sentence Tsarnaev to death. He said that the decision should be made.
“And yet, we reiterate that the only question in such proceedings is whether Tsarnaev will be executed. Whatever the outcome, he will spend the rest of his life in prison. It will happen,” he said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts declined comment Thursday.
The Justice Department will either ask the full First Circuit to hear the issue, or it will go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the decision.
This is the latest development in a long-running case that has already been argued once before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The high court reinstated the death sentence imposed on 30-year-old Tsarnaev in 2022 after the First Circuit reversed the sentence in 2020.
The circuit court subsequently found that the trial judge did not adequately question the jurors about their exposure to extensive media coverage of the bombing.
Supreme Court justices ruled in a 6-3 vote in 2022 that the First Circuit’s ruling was wrong.
The First Circuit reexamined the case after Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers asked it to consider issues the Supreme Court had not considered.
They include that the trial judge unfairly forced the trial to take place in Boston, and that he unfairly rejected a defense challenge to seating two jurors who they say lied during interrogation. This included whether or not they did so.
Despite a moratorium on federal executions imposed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department continues to seek to keep the death sentence in the Tsarnaev case.
The suspension comes after former President Donald Trump’s administration put 13 inmates to death in its final six months.
More than a year ago, during oral arguments before a three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, two jurors whom Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers claimed were dishonest during the lengthy jury selection process. The focus was on.
One of them said he had not commented on the incident online, but had retweeted a post calling Tsarnaev “trash.” Another juror said none of his Facebook friends would comment on the trial, but one said he wanted to join the jury to “play the part” to send Mr. Tsarnaev to “a prison where he will be taken care of.” Despite my recommendation, he said. To tell.
Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers said they raised these concerns during jury selection, but the judge chose not to consider them further.
Justice Department attorney William Glaser acknowledged during oral arguments in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the jurors made inaccurate statements, but said they lied about other disclosures. He said that this suggests more of a misunderstanding. He argued that the trial judge did nothing wrong.
The appeals court said there were potentially “innocuous” explanations for the juror’s actions, such as forgetting to post on social media or misunderstanding the judge’s questions.
But the appeals court said the trial judge’s “error was in failing to conduct a sufficient investigation to rule out more harmful explanations.”
An appeals court panel voted 2-1 to send the case back for further examination to the jury.
Supporters of the idea were Justices William Kayatta Jr. and O. Rogerie Thompson, who were appointed to the court by President Barack Obama.
Judge Jeffrey Howard, an appointee of President George W. Bush, dissented, writing that “there is sufficient basis for the district court to find that the two jurors at issue were not unfairly prejudiced.” .
Tsarnaev’s guilt in the death of Lindsay Lu, 23, a Boston University graduate student from China. Krystle Campbell, 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts. Martin Richard, an 8-year-old from Boston, was not at issue in the appeal, only whether he would receive the death penalty or life in prison.
Defense lawyers argued that Tsarnaev was under the influence of his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police days after the April 15, 2013, bombing.
Tsarnaev was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction, and the murder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier during the Tsarnaev brothers’ escape attempt.
Prosecutors told jurors the men carried out the attack to punish the United States for its wars in Islamic countries.
On the boat where Mr. Tsarnaev was found hiding, he scrawled a confession that mentioned war and said, among other things, “Stop killing innocent people and we will stop.” was.
