US top court reinstates death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber | Al Jazeera

The United States Supreme Court has reinstated convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence for his role in the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others, ruling in favour of the federal government.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices on Friday sided with the US Justice Department’s challenge to a 2020 appeals court ruling that had upheld Tsarnaev’s conviction but overturned his death sentence.


The Supreme Court faulted the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals on its findings both that Tsarnaev’s right to a fair trial under the US Constitution’s Sixth Amendment was violated and that the trial judge wrongly excluded certain evidence about a separate crime.

“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one,” conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.