AG Barr says, unsurprisingly, that feds will appeal reversal of Boston Marathon bomber's death sentence

As reported in this new AP piece, headlined "Barr: Feds to appeal ruling, seek death for Boston bomber," the US Attorney General has told the press that the Justice Department will seek to get the Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, back on federal death row. Here are the details:

The Justice Department will seek to reinstate a death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man who was convicted of carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Attorney General William Barr said Thursday.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Barr said the Justice Department would appeal the court’s ruling last month that tossed Tsarnaev’s death sentence and ordered a trial to determine whether he should be executed for the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.  Barr said the Justice Department would take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. “We will do whatever’s necessary,” Barr said.  “We will take it up to the Supreme Court and we will continue to pursue the death penalty.”...

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit court found in July that the judge who oversaw the 2015 trial did not adequately question potential jurors about what they had read or heard about the highly publicized case....

Tsarnaev, now 27, was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of an MIT police officer during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt.  The appeals court upheld all but a few of his convictions.

An attorney for Tsarnaev, David Patton, declined to comment Thursday.  Patton said after the 1st Circuit’s decision that “it is now up to the government to determine whether to put the victims and Boston through a second trial, or to allow closure to this terrible tragedy by permitting a sentence of life without the possibility of release.”...

Describing media attention in the case as “unrivaled in American legal history,” the appeals court said U.S. District Judge George O’Toole fell short in running a jury selection process “sufficient to identify prejudice.”  The 1st Circuit also found that O’Toole erred in refusing to let the defense tell jurors about evidence tying Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the killings of three people in the Boston suburb of Waltham in 2011....

President Donald Trump tweeted after the decision that the federal government “must again seek the Death Penalty in a do-over of that chapter of the original trial.”  The ruling came as the U.S. government recently resumed federal executions following a 17-year pause.

Prior recent related posts:

• First Circuit panel reverses death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
• Unsurprisingly, victims of Boston Marathon bomber differ on seeking a new death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after reversal on appeal