Federal Court Weighs Overturning Death Sentence For Boston Marathon Bomber

Attorney for the survivor Boston Marathon bomber asked a federal court Tuesday to overturn his client’s death sentence because of juror misconduct during the trial.

Two bombs were planted at the Boston Marathon finish line in 2013 by the brother of the Boston bomber. They killed three people and left hundreds injured. The brother was killed in a shootout between police and the bomber, but the bomber surviving was found and taken into custody.

The Boston Marathon bomber’s attorney, Daniel Habib, is now asking a federal appeals court to intervene and throw out the death sentence first handed down by a federal jury in 2015 and reimposed Last year, the Supreme Court. Habib told the First Circuit Court of Appeals that his client’s sentence should be lifted because of issues the Supreme Court did not consider in its March 2022 ruling, such as two jurors accused of lying during jury selection, according to the Associated Press.

Habib claimed that one juror denied posting on social media about bomber but had posted a post calling defendant a “terrorist”. “piece of garbage.” Another juror claimed that no one of his Facebook friends had posted about trial. However, a friend had encouraged the juror to. “play the part” To be a juror and convict the defendant.

William Glaser, Justice Department attorney, admitted that some jurors made inaccurate statements but did not claim that the evidence suggested that jurors had acted in bad faith.

“There is no indication in this record that the inaccuracies were the kind of knowing dishonesty that would lead to disqualification,” According to the AP Glaser claimed.

The First Circuit judges appeared to entertain Habib’s argument. “Don’t we need to know why it was inaccurate before we know whether it was evidence of some bias or an innocent mistake?” Judge William Kayatta stated, “According to Reuters.

The Boston Marathon bomber was Convicted After a 2015 trial, his defense team did not make much effort to defend him. He was charged with 30 counts. The defense attorney admitted his client’s guilt to some of the charges and called just four witnesses who together gave five hours of testimony. Over the course of fifteen days, 92 witnesses were called by the prosecution.

The First Circuit Returned the bomber’s death sentence in 2020. The defendant’s legal team had at the time pushed for the jury’s verdict to be overturned as well.

“This case should not have been tried in Boston. [The bomber] admitted heinous crimes, but even so — perhaps especially so — this trial demanded scrupulous adherence to the requirements of the Constitution and federal law. Again and again this trial fell short,” the bomber’s legal team said.