The United States Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, an Islamic terrorist who was convicted of perpetrating the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people and injured hundreds more, including 17 who lost limbs.
The court voted 6-3 to reverse a lower court decision that had overturned Tsarnaev's death sentence, with the three liberal justices dissenting.
Here's the opinion from Clarence Thomas in United States v. Tsarnaev: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-443_m6ho.pdf\u00a0\u2026.\n\nThe court divided along ideological lines, with Breyer (joined by Kagan and in part by Sotomayor) dissenting.— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) 1646407055
"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court majority. "The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is reversed."
Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 in the deaths of Krystle Campbell, Martin Richard, and Lingzi Lu, who died in the bombing, and also in the death of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, who was killed several days later, among other charges. He and his older brother Tamerlan, both immigrants to Massachusetts from Kyrgysztan, planted pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the race on April 15, 2013, and detonated them as an act of jihad.
Days later on April 18, after the FBI identified the brothers as suspects, they murdered Collier at the MIT campus, in a failed attempt to steal his gun, and later that night engaged in a shootout with police. Tamerlan was killed when Dzhokhar escaped the scene in an SUV, running over his brother. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured the next day after a manhunt in Watertown, Massachusetts.
During police questioning, Tsarnaev admitted that the brothers had intended to detonate bombs in Times Square, New York, next.
Tsarnaev was convicted on 30 federal charges related to the bombing and the events that followed. He was sentenced to death on June 24, 2015. He appealed his sentence, arguing that he didn't get a fair trial because the proceedings took place in Boston, where the jury would be biased. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed, holding that the trial court had erred in issues related to pretrial publicity and had excluded evidence that might have bolstered Tsarnaev's defense.
Then-President Donald Trump sounded off on the court's decision, demanding the "death penalty" for Tsarnaev and later directing his administration to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court ruling. The Biden administration renewed the request, surprising many of the President Joe Biden's supporters, given that the president made a campaign promise to eliminate the federal death penalty. Biden's Department of Justice referred to Tsarnaev as a "terrorist" who acted in "furtherance of Jihad" and who must receive the just penalty for causing "carnage at the finish line."
The Biden administration is currently enforcing a moratorium on federal executions while the government reviews the policy. It is unclear whether Tsarnaev's sentence will be carried out under Biden's presidency.
The Washington Post has updated a fact-check from last March that gave Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) two Pinocchios for predicting that the Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, would get a coronavirus stimulus check after Democrats blocked an amendment to prevent stimulus funds from going to prisoners.
"We received an email from Cotton’s press secretary, James Arnold, who noted that Tsarnaev did indeed receive a stimulus check. This news emerged in a filing made by the Justice Department seeking to seize the money for criminal restitution he still owes," Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote Thursday in an update to his March 9 fact-check.
The Post had reviewed claims made by Senate Republicans after Democrats blocked an amendment from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to the fast-tracked coronavirus stimulus bill. Cassidy's amendment would have prevented the treasury secretary from sending stimulus checks to any individual in prison. On March 8, Cotton warned that Tsarnaev could be one of many prisoners who would get a $1,400 check from U.S. taxpayers because Democrats killed the Cassidy amendment.
The left recognizes that this was a bad idea and that they're going to pay a price at the polls. \n\nGet ready for campaign ads. \n\nSo liberals and their media allies are trying to spin it for damage control.— Tom Cotton (@Tom Cotton) 1615214075
"The left recognizes that this was a bad idea and that they're going to pay a price at the polls. Get ready for campaign ads," Cotton wrote on Twitter.
Republicans said the amendment was a necessary fix to correct a 2019 ruling by a federal judge that blocked the Internal Revenue Service from creating regulations to deny stimulus payments to prisoners.
The Washington Post accused Cotton of "scaremongering." Kessler cited prisoner advocates who pointed out that Cotton and other Republicans voted for previous coronavirus stimulus bills that lacked the language excluding prisoners in the Cassidy amendment. He also quoted the argument Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) made on the Senate floor that claimed the Cassidy amendment would harm the families of prisoners, who are disproportionately black.
The Post said the Cassidy amendment was "not serious legislation," dismissing Cotton's warnings as campaign rhetoric and handing down a rating of two Pinocchios, meaning there were "significant omissions and/or exaggerations" in his claim.
However, on Wednesday a court filing revealed that Tsarnaev, who was convicted in 2015 for bombing the Boston Marathon, received a $1,400 stimulus payment. He has been ordered by prosecutors to return the taxpayer funds, along with any other money sent to him.
Cotton's press secretary, James Arnold, wrote to the Post demanding an immediate correction to last March's erroneous fact-check.
“You portrayed Senator Cotton’s amendment as pure political theater—'not serious legislation'—warning of an outcome that, according to your article, was very unlikely to happen," Arnold wrote. “Now that it has in fact happened, we’re asking that you update your story to include that Senator Cotton’s concerns did come true and that his amendment would have prevented it.”
Arnold added that Cotton's office disagreed with the Post's characterization of the Cassidy amendment as "crafted for future campaign ads" rather than acknowledging "legitimate policy disagreements" between Republicans and Democrats, specifically objecting to the phrase "scaremongering."
In the update, Kessler acknowledged Cotton's "predictive powers."
"He said the Boston bomber would get a stimulus check — and Tsarnaev did. Now, if the government is successful, this money will go to victims. So Tsarnaev still will not keep it. But in retrospect, the use of the phrase of 'scaremongering' was inappropriate," Kessler wrote. "Cotton had raised a legitimate issue of concern, even if he framed it in a political way. The term 'hyped up' in the headline went too far as well.
"Thus, we will reduce the rating on this claim to One Pinocchio — our version of 'mostly true.' His statement still lacks some context but he was certainly correct that Tsarnaev would receive a stimulus check."
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Cotton blasted Democrats for voting against the Cassidy amendment and permitting COVID-19 stimulus funds to go to prisoners like Tsarnaev.
"Every single Senate Democrat voted to send COVID relief payments to prisoners, including terrorists and mass murderers like the Boston Bomber," Cotton said. "Each dollar Dzhokhar Tsarnaev receives should go to the families of those he brutally injured and killed."
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