Yet Garland has not issued a formal policy banning federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty entirely. DOJ faced fierce criticism during the Trump Administration for appearing to operate at the direction of the White House, blurring the historic line between the President and his Attorney General.
In January, just before Biden took office, Rep. Pressley and Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin introduced legislation that would abolish the federal death penalty. Progressives like Pressley have called on Biden to take it a step further and use his authority to commute the sentences of all 45 people currently on federal death row. People still remember the horrifying images of the Boston bombing, the victims who died and the many more left without limbs.
The appeals court upheld all but a few of his convictions. A convicted murderer who is pleading with a jury to lock him up for life, rather than vote for his execution, has wide leeway to present evidence that he thinks would make a death sentence less likely. The killings, defense lawyers said, went to the heart of their argument that Tsarnaev was deeply influenced and radicalized by his revered brother, who already had shown a capacity for extreme violence. The younger sibling was less responsible for the marathon mayhem, they said.
For its part, the administration contends that it does not contest the older brother's leadership role, and that defense lawyers were able to make that case. The account of Tamerlan's involvement in the earlier killings came from a friend, Ibragim Todashev, whom investigators interviewed after the marathon attack. Todashev told authorities that Tamerlan recruited him to rob the three men, and they bound the men with duct tape before Tamerlan slashed their throats to avoid leaving any witnesses.
In a bizarre twist, while Todashev was being questioned in Florida, he was shot dead after authorities say he attacked the agents. During 90 minutes of courtroom argument Wednesday, few of the justices seem concerned about the judge's limit on questioning jurors.
But some suggested they believe he was wrong to block evidence of the Waltham murder. And Justice Stephen Breyer said that evidence was central to Tsarnaev's lawyers' arguments during the penalty phase. But Justice Department lawyer Eric Feigin said the evidence of who committed the Waltham murder was unreliable. Tamerlan and another man suspected to have been at the scene were both dead by the time of the trial. There was no way to know what happened," he said. Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to agree.
Justice Samuel Alito said admitting the evidence would complicate the penalty phase. Feigin also said allowing evidence of the older brother's involvement in a separate crime, with a different accomplice, in an apparent effort to get money, could be confusing and distracting to the jury. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded last year, however, that Tsarnaev's sentencing was effectively tainted because the judge inadequately questioned jurors about pretrial publicity and wrongly prevented them from hearing evidence of an alleged murder committed by Tsarnaev's older brother, Tamerlan, in The defense argues the prior killings illustrate that Tamerlan had a history of exerting influence over accomplices and that he helped indoctrinate his younger brother to participate in future acts of jihad.
Tsarnaev attorney Ginger Anders told the justices excluding the evidence "distorted" the sentencing process in violation of Dzhokhar's constitutional rights. The court's three liberal justices appeared sympathetic to the claim that Tsarnaev's bid to avoid execution was hamstrung.
They had no other defense. They agreed he was guilty.
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