The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing shocked the world, killing three people, including a Chinese student, and injuring more than 200 others. But after 7 years, the U.S. court of appeals overturned the killer's death sentence. The matter quickly caused controversy in public opinion, and even US President Trump was greatly dissatisfied.
On August 2, local time, Trump tweeted about the court of appeal's rejection of the death sentence, asking the US government to re-examine the case and sentence the murderer to death. He also criticized the fact that the trial process in this case took so long, which is "ridiculous to the extreme".
Screenshot of Trump's Twitter
Trump wrote: "Joka Tsarnaev, the perpetrator of the Boston bombings, clearly deserves to be sentenced to death, one of the worst terrorist attacks in the United States since the '9/11' attacks." However, the Court of Appeal rejected the death sentence. Many people have lost their lives or their lives ruined, and the federal government should revisit the cases and uphold the original death sentence, not allowing the appeal to be established. In addition, this process actually took so long, which is ridiculous! ”
On July 31, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the killer of the Boston bombings, and demanded a new sentence, Reuters reported on August 1.
Screenshot of the Reuters report
On April 15, 2013, Tharnaev and his brother Tamilnan carried out an explosion at the site of the Boston Marathon carrying a pressure cooker bomb filled with gunpowder and nails. Prosecutors said Tamirnan detonated the first bomb first, and 12 seconds later the two detonated a second bomb.
The attack killed three people and injured more than 200 others, including Lu Lingzi, a Chinese student at Boston University.
A few days later, the police exchanged fire with the Tsarnaev brothers during the manhunt operation, tamirnan was killed on the spot, and Joka was arrested. He was then imprisoned in a "super prison" in Florence, Colorado, known for its tight security measures.
In May 2015, a U.S. federal jury of 12 jurors convicted Tsarnayev on 30 counts and sentenced him to death. This is also the first time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that a U.S. federal court has sentenced a prisoner of a terrorist attack to death.
But in December 2019, Tsarnayev appealed, claiming he had "not received a fair verdict", and his defense lawyers also called the case "unfair" at the Boston trial and suggested that Tamirnan was the "mastermind" of the bombing.
Finally, on July 31 this year, three judges of the Court of Appeal unanimously determined that the jurors were "not impartial," perhaps "biased," and had "preconceived positions," and overturned the death sentence.
The boston bombing murderer Charnayev, pictured from the US media
After the verdict was overturned, Tsarnayev's defense lawyer said, "Now the prosecutor must decide whether to go to a second trial or simply allow life imprisonment without release to end this terrible tragedy." A judge at the Court of Appeal said, "There is no doubt that Joka will spend the rest of his life in prison, and the question that remains is whether he will be executed." ”
Trump expressed strong dissatisfaction with this on the 31st. He angrily denounced Tsarnaev as a "beast" and criticized: "It is ridiculous that they have beaten the death sentence back to the lower courts, and then they have to argue about it for a long time." ”
Legal sources predict that prosecutors may choose to file a lawsuit directly with the U.S. Supreme Court rather than request a hearing in the First Circuit, so they may be able to get a favorable ruling more quickly.
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