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.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.