Nearly 10 years after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev detonated two bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the First Circuit heard another round of arguments Tuesday about whether he should be put to death.
Months after the Supreme Court effectively reinstated Tsarnaev’s death sentence, Tsarnaev’s lawyers presented juror misconduct claims that weren’t part of the Supreme Court case.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers say two jurors lied about their knowledge of the high-profile case during questioning — and they argue the trial judge wrongly denied their move to exclude the two from the bench. Specifically, one juror said she hadn’t posted about the case online, despite sharing a tweet calling Tsarnaev a “piece of garbage.” Another juror said none of his Facebook friends had commented on the trial, even though one had urged him to “play the part” so he could get on the jury and send Tsarnaev to “jail where he will be taken of.”
A Justice Department lawyer said the trial judge did nothing wrong in his handling of the jurors. He acknowledged that the jurors made inaccurate statements but said other disclosures they made to the court suggest they were merely misremembering.
The Justice Department has continued to push to uphold Tsarnaev’s sentence even after Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021 imposed a moratorium on federal executions while the department conducts a review of its policies and procedures.
President Joe Biden has said that he opposes the death penalty and will work to end its use, but he has taken no action to do so while in office. And the moratorium doesn’t prevent federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, as they are in the case of a man currently on trial for killing eight people on a New York City bike path in 2017.