U.S. President Donald Trump has flayed an appellate court ruling that overturned the death sentence given to the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
In a tweet on Sunday, Trump said that hardly had anyone deserved the death penalty than Tsarnaev.
He said the government must push for the death penalty, adding that the country could not let the ruling stand.
“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!”.
Three people died and hundreds of others were injured after Tsarnaev, 27, and his older brother, Tamerlan, detonated homemade bombs along the marathon’s route on April 15, 2013.
Tsarnaev was handed the death penalty in 2015 but he appealed the ruling in 2019 on the ground that the juniors were biased.
In its ruling on July 31, the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with him, and ordered a retrial of the case.
It said the trial judge should have excluded jurors, who had already concluded that Tsarnaev was guilty.
Prosecutors are now left with two options: to comply with the appellate court ruling or challenge it at the Supreme Court.