United States v. Tsarnaev
Case Details
- Case No.: 20-443
- Jurisdiction: United States Supreme Court
Key Topics in the Case
Documents
Prior Decision
Decision below 968 F.3d 24 (1st Cir. 2020)
NACDL’s amicus brief argues that in the sentencing phase of his capital trial, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sought to introduce evidence in mitigation that his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev had previously enlisted an accomplice to commit a brutal triple murder and robbery on the ten-year anniversary of September 11, 2001. Tamerlan bound, beat, and slit the throats of three men (one a childhood friend) in the name of jihad. This evidence supported Dzhokhar’s core mitigation theory that his older brother was a violent jihadist who influenced him to participate in the Boston Marathon bombings and was more culpable for those crimes. But the district court excluded it. Tamerlan’s previous jihadist murders and recruitment of an accomplice are powerful pieces of mitigation evidence, and 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c) provides no basis to exclude them. “Waste of time” is not a basis for exclusion under Section 3593(c). The proposed mitigation evidence created no danger of “confusing the issues.” Section 3595(a)’s harmless error standard is demanding, and the Government fails to meet it here. The Government fails to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury was just as likely to disbelieve Dzhokar’s core mitigation theory if it had seen the Waltham evidence. The Government also fails to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have sentenced Dzhokhar to death even if it believed Dzhokhar acted under Tamerlan’s influence.
Author(s)
Catherine E. Stetson, Matthew J. Higgins, and David K. Bastian, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, DC; David M. Porter, NACDL Amicus Committee Co-Chair, Sacramento, CA; David D. Cole, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Washington, DC; John W. Whitehead and Douglas R. McKusick, The Rutherford Institute, Charlottesville, VA; Jennesa Calvo-Friedman, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, NY: Matthew R. Segal and Ruth A. Bourquin, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Massachusetts, Inc., Boston, MA; Brian W. Stull and Cassandra Stubbs, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Durham, NC.
