BOSTON, MA – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers, and his attorneys are appealing his death sentence in a final effort to change the conviction to life in prison.
In 2013, during the annual Boston Marathon, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother detonated two homemade bombs. The attack happened a little before 3 p.m. on April 15th, and three people lost their lives. Several hundred other resulted severely injured, including many who lost limbs.
Tsarnaev’s brother was killed by police during a manhunt that also ended with his arrest. After his trial in 2015, the Kyrgyz-American was sentenced to death for the attack. Ever since he has been waiting on death row at the ADX Florence supermax prison in Colorado.
The Rocky Mountains prison is infamously known as “a clean version of hell”, and between its walls, it holds most of the worst terrorists and traitors in the country. For instance, the 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui or FBI traitor Robert Hanssen.
Some other notorious bombers also share the 490-cell prison with Tsarnaev are Terry Nichols, who took part in the Oklahoma City bombing or Richard Reid, known as the “Shoe Bomber”.
Now, Tsarnaev’s team of lawyers has filed a 207-page briefing to appeal the court’s sentence. Among the attorneys that took part in the process are David Patton, Clifford Gardner, Mia Eisner-Grynberg and Gail Johnson. As well as Daniel Habib and Deirdre Von Dornum.
The briefing makes a total of 13 points to explain why Tsarnaev’s death sentence should be revised and revoked. The lawyers argue that their client did not receive a fair trial. Since the bombings traumatized the whole region, it was almost impossible to get impartial jury members for the trial.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers believe that he was denied his right to a fair trial and attest that the jury was drawn from a group of people that knew too many details about the attack. They also mentioned that 69% of the jury pool already believed their client was guilty of the explosions.
In addition, the attorneys contend that evidence that should be considered inadmissible was actually used at the trial to sentence Tsarnaev. Furthermore, they accuse two of the jurors of allegedly lying in the selection process, which would violate Tsarnaev’s rights.
Meanwhile, prosecutors maintain that the jury was impartially and carefully selected.
Even though Massachusetts does not enforce the death penalty since 1984, Tsarnaev’s case was tried as a federal offense. That made him eligible for execution. Now, Tsarnaev is fighting to get that sentence revoked and get life in prison for his crimes.
This might be the last chance Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get to change his fate.