Afotimber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for his role in the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. On Thursday, an appeals court ordered a review of two jurors for bias. File Photo by the Federal Bureau of Investigation/UPI
March 22 (UPI) — A federal appeals court has ordered the judge who oversaw the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of two brothers behind the Boston Marathon bombing, to investigate claims of juror bias.
Tsarnaev, 30, was sentenced to death by a jury in 2015 for his role in the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds in 2013.
However, Tsarnaev’s legal team has argued for his sentence to be thrown out alleging two jurors who sentenced their client to death should have been excluded over bias.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First District in Boston ruled 2-1 on Thursday that the district court’s previous investigation into the bias claims “fell short of what was constitutionally required” and directed Judge George O’Toole to investigate the allegations again.
“We remand this case to the district court to determine whether either juror should have been stricken for cause on account of bias,” court said in the ruling.
“If and only if the district’s investigation reveals that either juror should have been stricken for cause on account of bias, Tsarnaev will be entitled to a new penalty-phase proceeding.”
The court emphasized in the ruling that the only question affected by this decision is whether Tsarnaev will face execution.
“Regardless of the outcome, he will spend the rest of his life in prison,” the court said.
The development is the latest in the high-profile case.
In 2020, the appeals court vacated Tsarnaev’s death sentence and ordered a new penalty-phase trial on the grounds that jurors were improperly screened for potential bias.
The Supreme Court in 2022 voted 6-3 to reverse that decision and reinstate the death penalty. Tsarnaev’s lawyers then asked the appeals court to re-examine four issues that were not resolved in either the appeals court’s original decision nor the high-court’s.
On Thursday, the appeals court said three of the four remaining arguments failed — but there was cause to reinvestigate claims of jury bias held by two jurors.
The court document detailed how two jurors exhibited strong bias about the case on social media.
One of the jurors communicated with a group of friends on Facebook about the case. In the communication, one of the juror’s friends said, “If you’re really on jury duty, this guys got no shot in hell.” Another friend encouraged the juror to “play the part” so he could be placed on the jury and “send him to jail where he will be taken care of.”
The other juror frequently commented on the case as well as interacted with posts concerning the case made by other people on what was then called Twitter, now X. Among the posts she retweeted on the day of the bombing celebrated police who “went through hell to bring in that piece of garbage.”
On April 15, 2013, Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, placed explosives near the finish life of the Boston Marathon bombing.
When the devices detonated, three people were killed and more than 260 were injured.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed by police in a shootout on April 18, while Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested the next day.