Ruling renews fairness debate in Boston Marathon bomber case
“Boston Strong” remains a “vibrant” rallying cry more than seven years after the marathon bombing killed three people and injured more than 260 others, a federal appeals court noted as it threw out the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
But even as the ruling opened old wounds, it raised familiar questions about whether Tsarnaev can receive a fair hearing in the city where the bombs exploded — a community that may now be asked to relive unspeakable trauma.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held Friday that jurors were not adequately screened for bias ahead of Tsarnaev’s 2015 trial, describing media attention in the case as “unrivaled in American legal history.”
The three-judge panel ordered a new penalty phase — this time with more searching questions for prospective jurors — to decide whether the 27-year-old should be executed.
Tsarnaev “will spend his remaining days locked up in prison,” the judges made clear, “with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution.”
The Justice Department is expected to appeal. Legal observers predict prosecutors will turn straight to the U.S. Supreme Court without asking for a hearing before the full 1st Circuit. The U.S. government recently resumed federal executions following a 17-year pause and, under President Donald Trump, has pursued capital punishment in an increasing number of cases.
“When it comes to death penalty cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has been much more pro-prosecution than many of the circuit courts,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Should Friday’s ruling stand, attention will shift to whether an impartial jury can be impaneled in a city still traumatized by the 2013 attack. Robert Bloom, a Boston College law professor who has followed the case for years, said a new penalty phase would force the community to relive the bombing.
Marty Weinberg, a veteran defense attorney, said a second penalty phase would be “made enormously more difficult by the widespread knowledge — particularly in the Boston area — that another jury previously decided upon death.”