The Justice Department intends to reconsider the death sentence in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man convicted of 30 counts in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. During the bombings, three people were killed and hundreds injured.
The decision comes after a federal appeals court in Massachusetts overturned Tsarnaev’s death sentence last year. The panel found that there was reason to believe that the presiding judge’s trial did not adequately veto the jurors, pointing to two social media posts. The panel asked why the judge did not question the jurors when the messages were made public. The individual who became the frontman of the jury retweeted a post that Tsarnaev called a “piece of ash.”
In an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, Attorney General William Barr indicated that his department would appeal the ruling. “We will do what is necessary,” Barr told the AP. “We will take it to the Supreme Court and we will continue to prosecute the death penalty.”
U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling issued a statement later Thursday night in support of the appeal, describing Tsarnev as “an ideologically motivated mass murderer.”
“The seriousness of Tsarnaev’s crimes places him in that narrow category of criminals for whom death is a proportionate punishment,” Lelling said. “Some have argued that carrying out Tsarnaev will not deter others from prosecuting similar crimes. But, ultimately, this decision is not about downsizing. It is about justice.”
Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 for his role in the attack, which led to a days-long manhunt that shut down Boston. Tsarnaev’s lawyers say his brother Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with authorities, was the mastermind. An officer died in the shooting with the brothers and the couple also killed a campus police officer while authorities pursued them.
Last year, the Attorney General announced that his department would abolish a 17-year enforcement order, saying “the Department of Justice upholds the rule of law – and we owe it to the victims and their families to make sense of what is imposed by our justice system. “
Three men were executed in July, and four more are scheduled to take place in the next five weeks. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Tsarnaev is one of 59 people currently on the death row.
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