🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of placing and setting off bombs during the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon, has had his death sentence reinstated on Friday.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Tsarnaev's death sentence reversal by the First Circuit Court of Appeals was improperly managed due to potential juror questionnaire discrepancies. The court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Biden administration's arguments to reinstate the sentence.
"The Government argues that the Court of Appeals improperly vacated Dzhokhar's capital sentences based on the juror questionnaire and the Waltham evidence," the court wrote. "We agree."
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, saying that the original death sentence ruling was fairly given.
"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes," Thomas wrote. "The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one."
Justice Stephen Bryer wrote in his dissenting opinion that the trial could have been fairer. The death penalty reversal hinged on Tsarnaev's claim that he was acting in his brother Tamerlan's grand plan, never actually planning the attacks along with him.
"Dzhokhar argued that Tamerlan was a highly violent man, that Tamerlan radicalized him, and that Dzhokhar participated in the bombings because of Tamerlan's violent influence and leadership," Bryer wrote at the beginning of his opinion.
"In my view, the Court of Appeals acted lawfully in holding that the District Court should have allowed Dzhokhar to introduce this evidence."
In the opinion, co-signed by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan, Bryer also expressed his disapproval of the death penalty as a sentence.
"I have written elsewhere about the problems inherent in a system that allows for the imposition of the death penalty," the retiring justice wrote. "This case provides just one more example of some of those problems."
During his 2015 trial, Tsarnaev was convicted on all 30 charges against him.
The bombing on April 15, 2013, conducted by the two Tsarnaev brothers, resulted in 264 injuries and three deaths: 8-year-old Martin Richard, 23-year-old Lingzi Lu and 29-year-old Krystle Campbell.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a gunfight with police after the brothers went on the run. Police Officer Sean Collier was also killed.
Update 3/4/22, 11:25 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information on the Supreme Court ruling and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
