Current:Home > Contact-usAppeals court orders judge to probe claims of juror bias in Boston Marathon bomber’s case-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
Appeals court orders judge to probe claims of juror bias in Boston Marathon bomber’s case
View Date:2024-12-24 00:29:10
BOSTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s case to be returned to a lower court to probe claims of juror bias and determine whether his death sentence should stand.
The ruling from the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals keeps intact Tsarnaev’s death sentence for now. But the judges found that further investigation is needed to determine whether two jurors should have been stricken for biases.
If the lower court’s investigation reveals either person should have been disqualified, the court should vacate Tsarnaev’s death sentence and hold a new penalty-phase trial to determine whether he should sentenced to death, the judges said.
“And even then, we once again emphasize that the only question in any such proceeding will be whether Tsarnaev will face execution; regardless of the outcome, he will spend the rest of his life in prison,” the court said.
The U.S. attorneys office in Massachusetts and lawyers for Tsarnaev didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the decision.
The Boston-based appeals court issued its ruling more than two years after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the sentence imposed on 30-year-old Tsarnaev for his role in the bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds near the marathon’s finish line in 2013.
The 1st Circuit took another look at the case after Tsarnaev’s lawyers urged it to examine issues the Supreme Court didn’t consider. Among them was whether the trial judge wrongly forced the trial to be held in Boston and wrongly denied defense challenges to seating two jurors they say lied during questioning.
The appeals court first overturned Tsarnaev’s death sentence in 2020 and ordered a new penalty-phase trial to decide whether he should be executed. The court found then that the trial judge did not sufficiently question jurors about their exposure to extensive news coverage of the bombing. The Supreme Court justices voted 6-3 in 2022 when they ruled that the 1st Circuit’s decision was wrong.
Despite a moratorium on federal executions imposed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department has continued to push to uphold the death sentence in Tsarnaev’s case. The moratorium came after former President Donald Trump administration’s put to death 13 inmates in its final six months.
Oral arguments before the three-judge 1st Circuit panel more than a year ago focused on two jurors Tsarnaev’s lawyers say were dishonest during the lengthy jury selection process.
One of them said she had not commented about the case online, while Tsarnaev’s attorneys say she had retweeted a post calling Tsarnaev a “piece of garbage.” Another juror said none of his Facebook friends had commented on the trial, even though one had urged him to “play the part” so he could get on the jury and send Tsarnaev to “jail where he will be taken of,” defense attorneys say. Tsarnaev’s lawyers raised those concerns during jury selection, but say the judge chose not to look into them further.
William Glaser, a Justice Department lawyer, acknowledged during oral arguments before the 1st Circuit appeals court that the jurors made inaccurate statements, but said other disclosures suggested they misremembered rather than lied. He argued that the trial judge did nothing wrong.
Tsarnaev’s guilt in the deaths of Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts; and 8-year-old Martin Richard, of Boston, was not at issue in the appeal, only whether he should be put to death or imprisoned for life.
Defense lawyers argued that Tsarnaev had fallen under the influence of his older brother, Tamerlan, who died in a gun battle with police a few 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 killing of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt.
Prosecutors told jurors that the men carried out the attack to punish the United States for its wars in Muslim countries. In the boat where Tsarnaev was found hiding, he had scrawled a confession that referred to the wars and wrote, among other things, “Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.”
veryGood! (89459)
Related
- Mandy Moore Captures the Holiday Vibe With These No Brainer Gifts & Stocking Stuffer Must-Haves
- States are investigating how Instagram recruits and affects children
- What The Ruling In The Epic Games V. Apple Lawsuit Means For iPhone Users
- How Halle Berry and Jessica Chastain Replaced Will Smith for This Oscars 2023 Moment After 10-Year Ban
- Watch as dust storm that caused 20-car pileup whips through central California
- Ancient scoreboard used during Mayan ball game discovered by archaeologists
- Every Time Jimmy Kimmel and the 2023 Oscars Addressed Will Smith's Slap
- Oscars 2023: Lady Gaga Deserves an Applause for Helping Guest Who Fell on Red Carpet
- Philadelphia mass transit users face fare hikes of more than 20% and possible service cuts
- Self-driving Waymo cars gather in a San Francisco neighborhood, confusing residents
Ranking
- Family of security guard shot and killed at Portland, Oregon, hospital sues facility for $35M
- You can now ask Google to scrub images of minors from its search results
- Scientists tracked a mysterious signal in space. Its source was closer to Australia
- Planning for a space mission to last more than 50 years
- 'Bizarre:' Naked man arrested after found in crawl space of California woman's home
- Building the Jaw-Dropping World of The Last of Us: How the Video Game Came to Life on HBO
- Senators Blast Facebook For Concealing Instagram's Risks To Kids
- Memes about COVID-19 helped us cope with life in a pandemic, a new study finds
Recommendation
-
Military veteran gets time served for making ricin out of ‘curiosity’
-
Senators Blast Facebook For Concealing Instagram's Risks To Kids
-
The U.N. Warns That AI Can Pose A Threat To Human Rights
-
Facebook wants to lean into the metaverse. Here's what it is and how it will work
-
Tom Brady Shares How He's Preparing for Son Jack to Be a Stud
-
House lawmakers ask Amazon to prove Bezos and other execs didn't lie to Congress
-
Nebraska officials actively searching for mountain lion caught on Ring doorbell camera
-
Oscars 2023: See All the Couples Bringing Movie Magic to the Red Carpet