The Supreme Court on Friday reimposed the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, undoing a federal appeals court ruling that had dropped the sentence.
In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, the majority of justices rejected the defense’s claims that a judge presiding over Tsarnaev’s 2015 trial improperly barred the questioning of prospective jurors and was wrong to exclude evidence of a different crime two years prior to the bombing.
“Dzohkhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes,” Thomas wrote for the majority. “The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one.”
SUPREME COURT WEIGHS WHETHER TO REINSTATE DEATH PENALTY FOR BOSTON MARATHON BOMBER
Tsarnaev was convicted for planting and detonating two pressure-cooker bombs at separate points near the end of the marathon track in 2013, joined by his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The explosion from the bombs killed three people while wounding hundreds of others.
All three Democratic-appointed justices dissented, with retiring Justice Stephen Breyer saying Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should have been allowed to present evidence that his older brother previously murdered three people to make a case that he “radicalized him.”
Attorneys for Tsarnaev did not deny his role in the bombing but argued he was manipulated by his brother, seeking to underscore Tamerlan Tsarnaev as the mastermind behind the plot.
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In October, the high court weighed whether to reinstate the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after a federal appeals court overturned his sentence in 2020, citing procedural errors during his sentencing. Then-President Donald Trump appealed to the Supreme Court to have the death sentence reinstated, an effort carried on by President Joe Biden‘s administration despite Biden’s campaign pledge to sign legislation to end the federal death penalty.
The Justice Department declined to comment to the Washington Examiner on whether it will pursue Tsarnaev’s execution.
