WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider reinstating the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who presents President Joe Biden with an early test on his opposition to the death penalty
The judges agreed to hear an appeal filed by the Trump administration, which carried out executions of 13 federal prisoners during his last six months in office, including three in the final week of President Donald Trump’s tenure.
The case will not be heard until the fall, and it is unclear how the new government will handle Tsarnaev’s case. The initial prosecution and decision to seek a death sentence was handed down by the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president.
Biden has pledged to end the federal death penalty, but he has not said anything about how he intends to do so.
In just over two months in office, the new government has reversed its predecessor’s position in several lawsuits. But the Justice Department has not notified the court of any change in its position in the Tsarnaev case.
Even if the court reinstated the death sentence, nothing would force Biden to schedule an execution date.
In late July, the federal appeals court in Boston threw out Tsarnaev’s verdict because the judge did not do enough during his trial to ensure that the jury would not be biased against him.
The Justice Department had quickly appealed, asking the judges to hear and rule the case by the end of the current court term, in early summer. Then Attorney General William Barr said last year, “We will do whatever it takes.”
Tsarnaev’s lawyers acknowledged at the start of his trial that he and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, fired the two bombs at the finish of the marathon on April 15, 2013. But they argued that Dzhokar Tsarnaev is less guilty than his brother, who she said was the mastermind behind the attack.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died after a shootout with the police and was run over by his brother as he fled. Hours later, police captured a bloodied and injured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he hid in a boat parked in a backyard.
Tsarnaev, now 27, was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the murder of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer during the Tsarnaev brothers’ escape attempt. The appeals court upheld all but a few of his convictions.
This story has been corrected to show that the federal appeals court threw out the verdict in late July, not August.