Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev death sentence reinstated

The Supreme Court has reinstated the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted in the Boston Marathon bombings.

The Court, by a 6-3 vote, has reversed the decision to revoke Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence.

The Supreme Court in their opinion, stated that “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is reversed.”

U.S. Attorney Rachel Rollins issued the following statement following the ruling.

“On April 15, 2013, Boston changed forever. Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu, Martin Richard, and Officer Sean Collier were murdered, while hundreds of other innocent victims were maimed and wounded. Over the course of four days, Boston and our surrounding towns and cities sheltered in fear and disbelief. Although the scar remains some nine years later, the resiliency of our city, the families of the victims, and the hundreds of brave survivors knows no bounds.

Today’s opinion by the Supreme Court reverses the decision vacating the death sentence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev following the jury’s verdict. There remain, however, other legal issues that must be addressed by various courts. Legal rulings don’t erase trauma and pain. Our focus today, and always, is on the hundreds of families that were deeply impacted and traumatized by this horrific act of domestic terrorism.”

In 2020 in their reasoning to reverse the death sentence, the Appeals Court ruled that “the District Court abused its discretion when it excluded from sentencing the evidence concerning Tamerlan’s possible involvement in the Waltham murders and believed that the evidence was sufficiently probative of Tamerlan’s Tsarnaev ability to influence Dzhokhar.