Ayushi Panwar-
Supreme Court of United States was asked by President Biden’s Department of Justice to restore the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Boston Marathon incident: Tsarnaev along with his brother planted bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013, resulting in the death of three people and wounding hundreds of others.
Currently, he is serving life imprisonment for the offence. Last year an appeals court dismissed his death sentence on finding that the judge in the 2015 trial was unable to guarantee a fair jury due to extensive media coverage.
The DOJ stated a 48-page brief that the appeals court “ improperly vacated the capital sentences recommended by the jury in one of the most important terrorism prosecutions in our Nation’s history,” arguing that the Supreme Court should “ should reverse the decision … and put this case back on track toward a just conclusion.”
Excerpt from DOJ brief
“ The jury carefully considered each of the respondent’s crime and determined that capital punishment was warranted for the horrors that he personally inflicted – setting down a shrapnel bomb in a crowd and detonating it, killing a child and a promising young student, and consigning several others to a lifetime of unimaginable suffering.”
Biden’s Department of Justice: President Biden is the first sitting president who opposed the death penalty and stated that he wants to end its use.
However, the Department of Justice’s action was highly anticipated because of its appeal to the Supreme Court, which was launched last year at the request of former President Trump.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki would not be affected by how Biden and his administration approaches the case since the Supreme Court last March agreed to consider reinstating the death penalty for Tsarnaev.
Psaki said at the time, “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.”
The Biden administration is yet to respond to Axios’ request for comment.