On Friday, the United States Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The 6-3 decision was made strictly along ideological lines — all six conservative bloc justices voted in favor of reinstating Tsarnaev’s death sentence, while all three liberals dissented.
The decision is supported by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which argued in favor of reinstating Tsarnaev’s original sentence last year. Such arguments go against campaign promises made by President Joe Biden, who as a candidate vowed to end the federal death penalty. The choice to argue in favor of Tsarnaev’s death sentence also undermines the department’s moratorium on federal executions, which was implemented last summer by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The Court’s ruling overturns a 2020 decision by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that not enough attention was given to jury selection bias in the case, and that evidence Tsarnaev wanted to provide during the sentencing stage of his trial was improperly disallowed by the district judge overseeing it.
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a scathing dissent against the ruling, noting that the problems in the district court trial were not resolved by any precedent that the majority cited in their ruling. Breyer recognized, for example, that Tsarnaev’s lawyers were restricted from sharing evidence that suggested his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed by law enforcement following the bombings, took a larger role in the criminal acts and induced Dzhokhar to participate, information that could have affected his sentencing outcome.
During the guilt phases of the district court trial, the judge would not allow such evidence to be heard, over fears that a “minitrial” of Tamerlan would distract and confuse the jury from considering Dzhokhar’s case. But as Breyer pointed out, such restrictions have been rejected by the Supreme Court before.
“Indeed, this Court has rejected concerns that distracting minitrials should preclude the Government from introducing evidence about a nondefendant third party to show aggravation,” Breyer wrote. “Why then should the same concern preclude a defendant from introducing similar evidence in mitigation?”
The evidentiary and jury selection problems were just the latest, Breyer added, in a line of troubling issues regarding the federal death penalty that he and other liberal bloc members have recognized in the past few years.
“I have written elsewhere about the problems inherent in a system that allows for the imposition of the death penalty,” Breyer said. “This case provides just one more example of some of those problems.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy