The Supreme Court has now ruled directly down ideological lines about whether to
reinstate the death penalty for the Boston marathon bomber that is still around.
Let's go to some of these details.
There he is there.
The justices by a 6-3 vote on Friday, agreed with the Biden administration's
arguments that a federal appeals court was wrong throughout the sentence of a death,
a jury imposed on [Dzhokhar] Tsarnaev for his role in the bombing that killed
three people near the finish line of the marathon in 2013.
First of all, it's amazing, it was that long ago.
Also a part of that bombing, 260 people were injured, 17 of whom lost some limbs
and a law enforcement officer was killed as the brothers fled a few days later.
And also Dzhokhar's older brother and
accomplice Tamerlane died after a shootout with police as that all came together.
More details from this decision from the Supreme Court.
A three judge panel on of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston
upheld Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's convictions in 2020 on 27 counts.
But the appeals court ruled that his death sentence should be overruled because
the trial judge had not questioned jurors close enough about their exposure to a pre
trial publicity.
And it also excluded evidence concerning Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
So some of that stuff that they were saying they excluded and
the things that should have been admitted.
There was evidence from a triple murder in 2011 that Tamerlan may have been involved
in and that could have bolstered the argument.
The defensive argument from their lawyers that said that he dominated and
intimidated the younger brother, who is now the one is up for the death penalty.
He was 19 at the time.
So after the appeals court ruling, lawyers for the federal government during
the trump ministrations urged the Supreme Court that you're here to hear the case.
After the justice agreed to review at the by administration pursued the case.
Even though President Biden has said he will work to abolish federal executions
and the Justice Department under the his administration has imposed
a moratorium on carrying out the federal death penalty.
So before we get to some of the descent and the back and
forth between Clarence Thomas and Sotomayor and all those.
I guess the question is, where does this land?
Because this, I feel like this is one of those cases, at least one of those things.
As we pointed out, this whole process started under the Trump administration,
but the Biden administration picked up the baton and continued on down.
They're not gonna have to deal with much of the hypocrisy accusations based on
the fact that he said they don't wanna carry any more of these out.
But who's gonna really wanna argue that, hey, you gotta let the guy live.
That was part of the Boston marathon bombing.
That's really the question you guys.
>> Yeah, I mean, look, my big problem with the death penalty is that
there have been far too many individuals who were on death row and
later they were exonerated through DNA evidence.
Meaning that there, look, there's a lot of injustice in our justice system and
innocent people end up getting executed as a result.
I think that this particular case makes it difficult for at least me to make
the argument against the death penalty because this guy did it and
three innocent people died as a result.
There's the moral argument against the death penalty.
And I tend to agree with that moral argument.
But since I'm just sharing my personal opinion, I don't care that much
about this issue in regard to [CROSSTALK] >> Yes, this is the question then.
Sorry, one second.
So this is the question then.
For anyone that does support the death penalty,
it could be a lot of people say it's for a crime deterrent, others won't say it.
But I think this is the main reason it's for revenge.
It's just what it is.
You wanna get revenge for the family.
You wanna see something like that coming to an end and they feel, hey,
at least he's not here still sucking in the air.
And that's the thing, I think many people don't wanna say.
And it turns to a crime deterrent,
a lot of times the crimes that people are executed for those crimes happen again.
>> Right, I think anna put it quite well.
As we know, the justice system is incredibly flawed.
And as you guys pointed out, the Trump administration carried
out the most executions in the last 50 years, 50 plus years.
There was a story about Bill Barr when he was on his way out,
that Trump was excited about executing someone where the case was kind of flawed.
But as Anna stated, this is pretty clear cut.
There is definitely a morality argument.
But what I do find interesting is Merrick Garland was involved
in the Oklahoma city bombings and timothy McVeigh.
They said that there was going to be a moratorium, but
they're playing into in my belief how many Americans feel and
that, is that how Jr put it, they simply want revenge.
>> And I don't know why people can't admit that.
I guess they feel like they're a little bit too primitive to think that way.
But there's a lot of primitive things that we say openly and out loud.
So either believe it or not because then the hard part about accepting it for this
one particular instance is that it's hard for you then say, well maybe not that one.
That's the hard part.
It has to be all or nothing.
And that's where the discussion- >> Yeah, no, I I agree with you on that
JR, I mean, I'm still in favor of doing away with the death penalty,
particularly because of the racial biases.
Involved in the prosecution of people and and how so many people did end up
getting exonerated based on DNA evidence, like, they don't get it right.
And innocent people end up either getting executed or being on death row and
just shout out to the innocence project because they've really spearheaded this
effort to exonerate people using DNA evidence.
So if I could choose right now which path we take?
I would do away with the death penalty.
I'm just making the argument that this isn't the the best example to make my
case because it's abundantly clear that he did carry out this crime and
three innocent people died as a result.
And to your point about revenge, I'll admit it.
I mean, if someone, one of my loved ones died as a result of some criminal,
of course I would want revenge.
That is a human emotion.
It's totally natural and normal and I'm not even ashamed of it.
But our justice system is not supposed to be,
it's not meant to just carry out revenge.
That's not the point of our justice system.
It's supposed to be a way of yes punishing but also rehabilitating people and
that second part is always left out of the equation unfortunately.
>> Yeah, and I guess that's the way the government supposed to be seen as and
as my mother used to always say I was a kid, vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.