The US Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court's recent decision to quash the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
"Our hope is that this will result in reinstatement of the original sentence and avoid a retrial of the death penalty phase," Massachusetts prosecutor Andrew Lelling said in a statement late Thursday, according to AFP.
Tsarnaev, 27, was sentenced to death in 2015 for planting two home-made bombs near the finish line of the race in 2013, killing three people and injuring 264 others.
Tsarnaev was convicted in April of 2015 on 30 charges, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction.
He has confirmed that his older brother Tamerlan was behind the 2013 attack and that he “wanted to defend Islam from attack.”
However, earlier this month a federal appeals court tossed the death sentence of Tsarnaev. A three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial, finding that the judge who oversaw the case didn't sufficiently vet jurors for biases.
US President Donald Trump criticized the decision, saying on Twitter, “Rarely has anybody deserved the death penalty more than the Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The court agreed that this ‘was one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks since the 9/11 atrocities’. Yet the appellate court tossed out the death sentence.”
“So many lives lost and ruined. The Federal Government must again seek the Death Penalty in a do-over of that chapter of the original trial. Our Country cannot let the appellate decision stand. Also, it is ridiculous that this process is taking so long!” he added.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)