Disputed Death Penalty Justice

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury."

"He received one."

Justice Clarence Thomas, 2022 Supreme Court judgement

 

"Legal rulings don't erase trauma and pain."

"Our focus today, and always, is on the hundreds of families that were deeply impacted and traumatized by this horrific act of domestic terrorism."

Federal Prosecutor U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins

 

"A core premise of our criminal-justice system is that even the very worst among us deserves to be fairly tried and lawfully punished."   

"For even the most heinous of offenses, our system of justice demands vigorous protection—both in appearance and fact—of a defendant’s right to a fair trial and sentencing."

Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, federal judicial panel vacating Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's death sentence, 2020

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, arrested in the Boston Marathon bombing, is pictured in this handout photo presented as evidence by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston, Massachusetts on March 23, 2015. REUTERS/U.S.

In the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who with his older brother Tamerlan, set off explosives in the crowds attending the 2013 Boston Marathon as an act of Islamist terrorism where three people were killed and over 260 people were wounded, evidence of Tsarnaev's older brother's involvement in a triple murder that took place in Waltham, Mass., in 2011 was excluded. According to Tsarnaev's lawyers the argument was that, 19 at the time of the attack he was under his brother's orders in the marathon bombing, obeying "an authority figure". 

The U.S. Supreme Court found fault with the 1s U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Boston -- that found Tsaenaev's right to a fail trial under the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment was violated , and as well that the trial judge excluded -- wrongly -- certain evidence respecting a separate crime. Not committed by the defendant, but by his older brother who was shot dead by police, and for whom no trial was therefore to take place.

The Justice Department challenged the 2020 federal appeals court ruling upholding Tsarnaev's conviction, while overturning his death sentence. Tsarnaev himself will remain on death row, the application of the penalty will be suspended in line with President Biden's administration imposing a moratorium in federal cases on the death penalty. His execution is not imminent, despite the 6-3 decision favouring the federal government.

In the event, the Supreme Court's six conservative justices were in the majority, leaving its three liberal justices in a dissenting position. The Biden administration in its intention to eliminate the death penalty -- passing legislation at the federal level -- plans to set incentives for states to follow suit, endorsing life sentences without probation or parole in its stead.

The two brothers, ethnic Chechens, were committed to a plan to commit mass murder in an Islamist strike against American citizens. By coincidence and certainly not by surprise, Chechnya's Islamist government, closely aligned with Russia following two deadly destructive wars of subjugation that totally destroyed the Chechen capital city and brought its citizens under direct Russian control, has sent crack military units into the invasion of Ukraine launched by Vladimir Putin on February 24.

John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images