(Reuters) The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to reinstate Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence for helping carry out the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.
The department argues in its petition to the court that an appeals court improperly vacated the death penalty “in one of the most important terrorism prosecutions in our nation’s history.”
A federal appeals court in July overturned Tsarnaev’s death sentence, concluding that a trial judge “fell short” in conducting the jury selection process and screening jurors for potential bias following pretrial publicity.
The Justice Department argues that in doing so, the appeals court “denies district courts the broad discretion to manage juries” that Supreme Court precedents provide.
