US Supreme Court reinstates Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence

The justices voted 6-3 to rule that a lower court was wrong to throw out Tsarnaev’s sentence for his role in the incident that killed three people in 2013

The defence had argued that Tsarnaev was indoctrinated and radicalised by his older brother, who died soon after the attack

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death for carrying out the April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing attack that killed three people and injured more than 260. Photo: FBI via AP

Published: 3:05am, 5 Mar 2022

The US Supreme Court has reinstated the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The justices, by a 6-3 vote on Friday, agreed with the Biden administration’s arguments that a federal appeal court was wrong to throw out the sentence of death a jury imposed on Tsarnaev for his role in the bombing that killed three people near the finish line of the marathon in 2013.

The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled in 2020 that the trial judge improperly excluded evidence that could have shown Tsarnaev was deeply influenced by his older brother, Tamerlan, and was somehow less responsible for the carnage.

The appeal court also faulted the judge for not sufficiently questioning jurors about their exposure to extensive news coverage of the bombing.

A woman kneels and cries in front of a memorial to the Boston Marathon bombings victims at the barricades surrounding the scene in April 2013. Photo: Reuters

“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority, made up of the court’s six conservative justices.