The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the United States Supreme Court to hear the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 27, after a panel of circuit court judges overturned his death sentence.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who first arrived in the U.S. with his family on tourist visas, was previously convicted and sentenced to death for carrying out an Islamist terrorist attack with his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, on April 15, 2013, at the annual Boston Marathon.
Tamerlan died during the manhunt for his arrest.
In the attack, the Tsarnaev brothers killed eight-year-old Martin Richard, 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, 23-year-old Lingzi Lu, and left more than 280 people injured. Later in the evening, the Tsarnaev brothers killed 27-year-old MIT Officer Sean Collier.
This week, DOJ officials asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the terrorist’s death sentence in July.
“Given the profound stakes … the First Circuit should not have the last word,” Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall and other lawyers told the U.S. Supreme Court in a letter.
Should the Supreme Court not take the case, prosecutors would have the option to drop their pursuit of the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and agree to a life sentence or pursue another trial.
The Tsarnaev brothers first arrived in the U.S. in April 2002 at 15 years old and eight years old with their family on six-month tourist visas from Kyrgyzstan. Within a year of arriving in the U.S., the Tsarnaevs applied for asylum to remain in the country.
After having been granted asylum, the Tsarnaevs applied for lawful permanent residence, otherwise known as green cards. In 2007, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was given a green card while his brother, Tamerlan, did not secure a green card.
Then, on September 11, 2012, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was able to become a naturalized American citizen just eight months before he and his brother killed four Americans in the Boston bombings.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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