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The Boston bombing, which occurred nearly 11 years ago, was one of the most shocking and horrific attacks in U.S. history. The bombing was done by two brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon. In the attack, three people were killed and hundreds more were injured. One of the brothers who orchestrated the attack, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed by gunfire in a battle with police just days after the bombing. The other brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was arrested and later found guilty of the attack, being given the death sentence. However, his defense team is trying to appeal the sentencing, claiming that members of the jury for his trial held bias.

The judge who oversaw the trial is being asked to hold an investigation.

With this possible appeal, Tsarnaev will not be subject to a retrial. Should the investigation show that juror bias was in fact present in the ruling, his sentencing will simply change from the death penalty to life in prison.

The first appeal that his defense team called for included a three-person panel of judges from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They withheld the death sentence of Tsarnaev after hearing the claims from the defense that two of the jury members actively had bias against him the defendant. While they did withhold the sentence, they saw room for more investigation, which is why they sent the case back down to the judge who oversaw the trial. The judge panel felt that the overseeing judge did not properly probe jurors to be sure to eliminate bias.

Since the first ruling was issued, Tsarnaev’s defense team has consistently pushed for appeals.

The case was even taken as far as the Supreme Court, all to have the death penalty sentencing removed. The federal U.S. court reinstated the sentencing in 2022 after it had been removed from a previous appeal trial in 2020 in just the 1^st Circuit court. Due to the Supreme Court’s reinstatement, it has been brought forward again, leading to more legal battling.

The Justice Department is pushing to maintain the death sentence even with a moratorium currently placed on federal executions, but this is not stopping the appeal attempts. Tsarnaev’s defense team is finding new ways to argue the bias, primarily referencing social media for their case of juror bias. One juror had reportedly retweeted a post calling Tsarnaev a “piece of garbage” while the second juror was allegedly told by a friend via Facebook to “play the part” so they could send Tsarnaev “to jail where he will be taken care of.”

With the repetition of court battling still staying ongoing, we shall see what the future holds in the case of Tsarnaev.