Friday, March 04, 2022

SO MUCH FOR BEING PRO-LIFE

U.S. Supreme Court reinstates Boston Marathon bomber's death sentence



 Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is pictured in this handout photo presented as evidence by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston

Fri, March 4, 2022
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday reinstated convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's death sentence for his role in the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others, ruling in favor of the federal government.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices sided with the Justice Department's challenge to a 2020 federal appeals court ruling that had upheld Tsarnaev's conviction but overturned his death sentence.

The Supreme Court faulted the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on its findings both that Tsarnaev's right to a fair trial under the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment was violated and that the trial judge wrongly excluded certain evidence about a separate crime.

"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one," conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.

The court's six conservative justices were in the majority, with its three liberals dissenting.

President Joe Biden as a candidate promised to work to pass legislation in Congress to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and set incentives for states to do as well, instead endorsing life sentences without probation or parole. But his administration last year opted to proceed with an appeal initially launched by the Justice Department under his predecessor Donald Trump to defend Tsarnaev's death sentence.

In a dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer agreed with 1st Circuit that evidence about the separate crime, a 2011 triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts linked to Tsarnaev's older brother Tamerlan, was improperly excluded.

Lawyers for Tsarnaev, who is 28 now and was 19 at the time of the attack, have argued that Tsarnaev played a secondary role in the marathon bombing to his brother, who they called "an authority figure" with "violent Islamic extremist beliefs." As such, the evidence about another crime Tamerlan allegedly committed would be relevant, they argued.

"This evidence may have led some jurors to conclude that Tamerlan's influence was so pervasive that Dzhokhar did not deserve to die for any of the actions he took in connection with the bombings, even those taken outside of Tamerlan's presence," Breyer wrote.

"And it would have taken only one juror's change of mind to have produced a sentence other than death, even if a severe one," added Breyer, who in the past has questioned the constitutionality of the death penalty.

The primary source of the evidence about the other murders, a man named Ibragim Todashev, was killed by an FBI agent in 2013 when he attacked officers during an interview.

The Supreme Court also found that U.S. District Judge George O'Toole, who presided over the trial, did not violate Tsarnaev's right to a trial in front of an impartial jury by failing to properly screen jurors for potential bias following pervasive news coverage of the bombings.

CONVICTED ON ALL COUNTS

The Tsarnaev brothers detonated two homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon's finish line on April 15, 2013, and days later killed a police officer. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after the gunfight with police.

Jurors convicted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 2015 on all 30 counts he faced and determined he deserved execution for a bomb he planted that killed Martin Richard, 8, and Chinese exchange student Lingzi Lu, 23. Restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, was killed by the second bomb.

Marc Fucarile, who lost his right leg in the second blast, said the Supreme Court "did the right thing" and that the three justices who dissented "should be ashamed." But Fucarile said he has no confidence that the death sentence would ultimately be carried out, especially under the Biden administration.

"He got what he deserves," said Fucarile, 43. "I think we need to send a message, you can't just kill innocent people and set off bombs in crowds of people."

No federal inmates were executed for 17 years before Trump oversaw 13 executions in the last six months of his term. Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, last July imposed a moratorium on federal executions while the Justice Department reviews the death penalty.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in March 2021 that Biden continues to have "grave concerns about whether capital punishment, as currently implemented, is consistent with the values that are fundamental to our sense of justice and fairness."

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Will Dunham)

High court reimposes Boston Marathon bomber's death sentence

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has reinstated the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The justices, by a 6-3 vote Friday, agreed with the Biden administration's arguments that a federal appeals 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.

“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.

The court reversed the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which 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 appeals court also faulted the judge for not sufficiently questioning jurors about their exposure to extensive news coverage of the bombing.

In dissent for the court's three liberal justices, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, “In my view, the Court of Appeals acted lawfully in holding that the District Court should have allowed Dzhokhar to introduce this evidence.”

Breyer has called on the court to reconsider capital punishment. “I have written elsewhere about the problems inherent in a system that allows for the imposition of the death penalty ... This case provides just one more example of some of those problems,” he wrote in a section of his dissent his liberal colleagues, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, did not join.

The prospect that Tsarnaev, now 28, will be executed anytime soon is remote. The Justice Department halted federal executions last summer after the Trump administration carried out 13 executions in its final six months.

President Joe Biden has said he opposes the death penalty, but his administration was put in the position of defending Tsarnaev’s sentence at the Supreme Court.

Had Tsarnaev prevailed at the high court, the administration would have had to decide whether to pursue a new death sentence or allow Tsarnaev to serve out the rest of his life in prison.

Tsarnaev’s guilt in the deaths of Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts; and 8-year-old Martin Richard, of Boston, was not at issue, only whether he should be put to death or imprisoned for life.

Tsarnaev was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt. The appeals court upheld all but a few of his convictions.

Two people who were seriously injured in the bombing and its aftermath praised Friday's outcome on Twitter.

“Congratulations to all who worked tirelessly for justice,” wrote Adrianne Haslet, a professional ballroom dancer who lost a leg in the attacks.

Dic Donohue, a Massachusetts transit police officer who was critically wounded in a firefight with the two marathon bombers, tweeted: “Bottom line: He can’t kill anyone else.”

The main focus at high court arguments in October was on evidence that implicated Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a triple killing in the Boston suburb of Waltham on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The evidence bolstered the defense team theory that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was indoctrinated and radicalized by his older brother.

The trial judge had rejected that argument, ruling that the evidence linking Tamerlan to the Waltham killings was unreliable and irrelevant to Dzhokhar’s participation in the marathon attack. The judge also said the defense team's argument would only confuse jurors.

One problem with the evidence about the Waltham killings was that both Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Ibragim Todashev, who implicated him, were dead by the time of the trial.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, had been in a gunfight with police and was run over by his brother as he fled, hours before police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston suburb of Watertown.

Todashev was interviewed by investigators after the marathon attack. He told authorities that Tamerlan recruited him to rob the three men, and they bound the men with duct tape before Tamerlan slashed their throats to avoid leaving any witnesses.

In a bizarre twist, while Todashev was being questioned in Florida, he was shot dead after authorities say he attacked the agents. The agent who killed Todashev was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.

Given the circumstances, Thomas wrote, U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. can't be faulted for excluding Todashev's account because “no matter how Dzhokhar presented the evidence, its bare inclusion risked producing a confusing mini-trial where the only witnesses who knew the truth were dead.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh also voted to reimpose Tsarnaev's death sentence.

Ayanna Pressley slams 'far-right majority' Supreme Court for reinstating the Boston Marathon bomber's death penalty: 'State-sanctioned murder is not justice'

Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts at a press conference outside the US Capitol on December 10, 2021.
Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts at a press conference outside the US Capitol on December 10, 2021.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
  • The Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty for Dzokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers.

  • Pressley, a progressive whose district includes most of Boston, slammed the court's decision.

  • "State-sanctioned murder is not justice, no matter how heinous the crime," she said.

Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts condemned the Supreme Court's Friday decision to reinstate the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers.

"The Supreme Court's decision today to reinstate the death penalty in the Tsarnaev case is deeply disappointing, but unsurprising for this far-right majority Court that has shown time and again its contempt for the people," Pressley said in a statement following the court's decision. "The death penalty is a cruel and inhumane punishment that has no place in society."

In August 2020, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit threw out Tsarnaev's federal death sentence because of jury selection issues and bias. President Donald Trump's Department of Justice appealed the decision — a move President Joe Biden's administration affirmed — and the Supreme Court ruled 6-3, along conservative-liberal lines, to overturn the appeals court's decision.

"State-sanctioned murder is not justice, no matter how heinous the crime," said Pressley. "I remain committed to accountability and healing for everyone impacted by the Boston Marathon bombing and I pray for those who are forced to re-live their trauma each time we are reminded of that devastating day."

In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan planted pipe bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding nearly 200 others. While Tamerlan was later killed during the manhunt that ensued, Dzhokhar was arrested and a federal jury later sentenced him to the death penalty in 2015.

Pressley, a progressive "Squad" member, was first elected to her a district encompassing roughly three fourths of Boston in 2018. She is the lead House co-sponsor of a bill to end the death penalty at the federal level, while Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is carrying the bill in the Senate.

It's not immediately clear whether Tsarnaev will actually face execution, given Biden's own stated opposition to the death penalty, Attorney General Merrick Garland's current moratorium on federal executions, and Pressley's contention that Biden has personally pledged to her that no federal executions would take place during his presidency.

"President Biden gave me his word that no one would be executed by the federal government under his watch, and I fully expect him to keep that promise," said Pressley.

Pressley also called on Congress to pass her bill to end the federal death penalty while reiterating prior requests that she and other members of Congress have made to the administration.

"I continue to call on President Biden to take executive action to halt federal executions, commute the sentences of those on death row, direct DOJ prosecutors to no longer seek the death penalty, and dismantle the death row facility at Terre Haute," she said, referring to a facility in Indiana that houses federal death row inmates.


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