JUSTICES COULD REIMPOSE DEATH SENTENCE
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will consider reinstating the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, setting up a dilemma for President Joe Biden, who has said he opposes capital punishment.
The court plans to review a decision by a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In July, the panel agreed with Tsarnaev’s lawyers that the judge overseeing his trial did not adequately vet potential jurors for bias. It also said some evidence was improperly withheld that might have indicated that Tsarnaev’s older brother Tamerlan was more culpable for the attack. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed as police closed in on the brothers days after the April 2013 attack.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted to his role in the bombing, which killed three people and wounded hundreds of others at the annual race’s finish line. At issue is the appeals court decision that he is entitled to a new penaltyphase trial to determine whether he deserves execution.
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case in its next term, which begins in October, raises a quandary for the administration evident in White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s ambiguous answer when was asked about it Monday.
“President Biden has made clear, as he did on the campaign trail, that he has grave concerns about whether capital punishment, as currently implemented, is consistent with the values that are fundamental to our sense of justice and fairness,” Psaki said.
She added: “He’s also expressed his horror at the events that day and his actions and Tsarnaev’s actions, I should say, as vice president. He spoke to the people of Boston on the one-year anniversary of the horrible crime, as he said then, ‘We are Boston, we are America. We own the finish line.’ ”
When Biden was vice president, the Obama administration pursued the death penalty for Tsarnaev. After the appeals court decision was announced in July 2020, President Donald Trump was adamant that his administration would ask the Supreme Court to intervene.
Trump’s Justice Department was aggressive in restarting the federal death penalty.
After years of no federal executions, the Trump administration put 13 inmates to death in its final months. No federal executions are scheduled, and it seems likely because of Biden’s opposition that current Justice Department policy would mean something of a moratorium on executions, either official or not.