On Friday, a federal appeals court set aside the death sentence handed down to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing. The attack killed three people and injured 260 others. The three-judge court of appeals panel said that the jurors were not adequately screened for potential bias.
The judges of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial to consider whether the 27-year-old Tsarnaev should be executed for the crimes. In total Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 charges, which includes conspiracy and “use of a weapon of mass destruction.”
According to NPR news, the panel cited errors made in the original case and returned it to the federal district court that had convicted Tsarnaev in 2015.
In the original conviction, Dzhokhar received six death sentences and 11 concurrent life sentences. In the ruling, the court ordered that a new jury be impaneled and have a retrial for sentencing. The death penalty may still be applied if the new jury believes it is appropriate.
The court of appeals claims bias went undetected
“A core promise of our criminal-justice system is that even the very worst among us deserves to be fairly tried and lawfully punished,” wrote Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson in the 224-page opinion. Judge Thompson went on to note that the district court judge who had presided over the conviction had not adequately vetted the jurors for bias.
