(StraightNews.org) – A federal appeals court has ordered a lower court to probe the jury from the Boston Marathon bombing case for bias. The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals found that the initial trial judge did not sufficiently examine claims by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team, who argued that two jurors in his original trial were biased against their client.
The jury convicted Tsarnaev for the 2013 bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds, but in 2022, his attorneys argued that two of the jurors lied during initial questioning, with one posting a tweet calling their client a “piece of garbage.” During the selection process, however, the same juror stated that she had not published any comments regarding the case on social media.
A second juror claimed that none of his social media contacts commented on the trial, but lawyers said this was untrue, and one of his Facebook friends urged him to send Tsarnaev to jail.
While the Appeals Court has ordered a new investigation, it did not vacate the death sentence handed down to Tsarnaev. However, if jury bias is found in the latest investigation, experts say a new penalty-phase trial will likely take place to determine if the death penalty should be upheld.
The Boston Marathon bombing took place on April 15, 2013. Brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev placed two homemade explosive devices near the finish line, which exploded and killed three people. More than a dozen bystanders were seriously injured and lost limbs. The brothers went on the run, and following a manhunt and shootout with authorities days later, Tamerlan died in hospital.
In 2015, a Massachusetts jury convicted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on 30 charges, including conspiracy use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, conspiracy to bomb a place of public use, and malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive resulting in death – all charges that carry the death penalty.
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