In a stunning ruling today, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated the death penalty of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 of the 2013 terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon.

Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan sparked five days of panic in Boston on April 15, 2013, when they detonated two homemade pressure cooker bombs at the marathon’s finish line and then went into hiding.

Three nights later, as they attempted to flee the city, they sparked a new round of terror in Boston when they hijacked a car and then shot dead Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier. Tsarnaev’s brother died later that night after a gunfight with police, which ended when Dzhokhar ran him over with a stolen car.

Those bombs killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

In 2015, in a separate trial, Tsarnaev was sentenced to death by a jury. It is this jury sentencing that the appeals court has overturned charging that the lower-court judge failed in doing enough in the jury selection process to keep out partial jurors exposed to the publicity surrounding the attack. U.S. Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson (Obama appointee) indicated that …

… the pervasive news coverage of the bombings and their aftermath featured “bone-chilling” photos and videos of Tsarnaev and his brother carrying backpacks at the marathon and of those injured and killed near its finish line.

The trial judge allowed his jury to include jurors who had “already formed an opinion that Dzhokhar was guilty – and he did so in large part because they answered ‘yes’ to the question whether they could decide this high-profile case based on the evidence.”

The same jury that convicted Tsarnaev in 2015 also was the same jury that sentenced him in a separate sentencing trial.

If the jury was good enough to convict on evidence, why would they be less capable of consideration of the sentence?

Which leaves one wondering if the Appeals court ruled more on their distaste of the death penalty than the competency of the jury. There is no question to Tsarnaev’s guilt nor the enormity of the crime involved. Even AG Loretta Lynch found the sentence appropriate.

Comment from the U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling’s office is limited to that they are going to review the decision. I hope they don’t wimp-out. Tsarnaev’s should not be allowed to keep what he so cruelly and with great malice, took from others.

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