Old judgment back in force
“Boston bombers” face the death penalty
03/04/2022 7:32 p.m
The terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon in 2013 killed three and injured hundreds. The death penalty was initially imposed on the assassin Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but an appeals court later overturned the verdict. Now things are different.
The “Boston bomber” Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could now be executed after all. The US Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty previously imposed in the trial of the Islamist marathon bombing in Boston in 2013 was lawful. An appeals court overturned the death sentence against the native Chechen in 2020, arguing, among other things, that the trial had not ensured that the jury was impartial towards Tsarnaev. The Supreme Court reversed this decision in its now published decision.
“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has committed heinous crimes,” the Supreme Court said. The constitution nevertheless guarantees him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He got that. The judgment of the Court of Appeal is therefore set aside.
In April 2013, Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan detonated two explosive devices made with pressure cookers at the finish line of the marathon in Boston, Massachusetts. Three people – including an eight-year-old boy – were killed and 260 injured. Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a policeman were killed in a day-long chase.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested shortly after the attack, seriously injured. He confessed to the crime and is now in a maximum security prison. Tsarnaev could be sentenced to death, although Massachusetts had abolished the death penalty in the early 1980s because he was being tried under federal law.