The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man convicted for the Boston Marathon bombing more than eight years ago.
The court on Friday ordered a lower-court judge to hold a new trial to determine what penalty Tsarnaev should receive. Tsarnaev’s conviction was not changed in the ruling.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling told the Washington Examiner that the Justice Department is “currently reviewing the opinion and are declining further comment at this time.”
Authorities identified Tsarnaev, 27, and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev as the men responsible for one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks since the Sept. 11 attacks, detonating two homemade pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line at the 2013 Boston Marathon. The attack killed three people — Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu, and Martin Richard — and wounded hundreds more, including many horrific life-altering injuries and causing 17 people to lose limbs. The brothers also killed an MIT campus police officer Sean Collier by shooting him in the head as they attempted to escape.
A five-day manhunt followed the attack, and in a shootout with police in which the brothers also threw bombs at them. In the chaos, Dzhokhar ran over Tamerlan and killed him. Dzhokhar was later found bleeding and hiding out in a boat in Watertown. He admitted to committing the crimes but claimed his brother was the true radical and had pressured him into it.
Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, an Obama appointee, said in her ruling that Tsarnaev’s trial “did not meet the standard” of fairness guaranteed by the Constitution. She said Tsarnaev’s new trial with a new jury will be “strictly limited to what penalty Dzhokhar should get on the death-eligible counts.” Tsarnaev is still eligible to receive the death penalty.
The judge said that “a core promise of our criminal-justice system is that even the very worst among us deserves to be fairly tried and lawfully punished” and that “to help make that promise a reality, decisions long on our books say that a judge handling a case involving prejudicial pretrial publicity must elicit the kind and degree of each prospective juror’s exposure to the case or the parties if asked by counsel — only then can the judge reliably assess whether a potential juror can ignore that publicity, as the law requires.” Thompson said that “despite a diligent effort, the judge here did not meet the standard.”
Thompson said that the lower court trial judge erred during the voir dire process under which possible jurors are questioned to ensure they can be impartial.
“By not having the jurors identify what it was they already thought they knew about the case, the judge made it too difficult for himself and the parties to determine both the nature of any taint (e.g., whether the juror knew something prejudicial not to be conceded at trial) and the possible remedies for the taint,” Thompson said. “This was an error of law and so an abuse of discretion.”
Thompson also found that the trial judge wrongly allowed three firearms offenses under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) to stand, when the law said otherwise. Tsarnaev had been found guilty on a host of other crimes.
“The first error requires us to vacate Dzhokhar’s death sentences and the second compels us to reverse the three § 924(c) convictions,” the judge ruled, stressing, “Just to be crystal clear: Because we are affirming the convictions (excluding the three § 924(c) convictions) and the many life sentences imposed on those remaining counts (which Dzhokhar has not challenged), Dzhokhar will remain confined to prison for the rest of his life with the only question remaining being whether the government will end his life by executing him.”
