United States Supreme Court Reinstates Death Penalty for Boston Marathon Bomber
The Boston Marathon bombings were a tragic act of domestic terrorism. Brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding hundreds more. The three individuals who died, were two young women and an eight year old boy. They all bled to death after being hit with materials from the bomb. Many of those who were injured lost limbs. In the aftermath of the attacks, the brothers fled and murdered a MIT campus police officer, and got into an altercation with police which resulted in Dzhokhar accidently killing Tamerlan. Dzhokhar was indicted for 30 crimes, including 17 capital offenses. After a lengthy and publicized trial, Dzhokhar was sentenced to death. However the Court of Appeals vacated this decision after finding that the District Court abused its discretion during jury selection by declining to ask about the kind and degree of each prospective juror’s media exposure and that the District Court abused its discretion during sentencing when it excluded evidence concerning Tamerlan’s possible involvement other murders. The Supreme Court took this case in United States v. Tsarnaev.
What happened in the Tsarnaev case?