Supreme Court reinstates Boston Marathon bomber's death sentence

March 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday reinstated the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The 6-3 decision reverses a July 2020 federal appeals court ruling that threw out the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and ordered a new sentencing hearing.

The Supreme Court held that the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals improperly vacated Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's capital punishment sentence.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, each brought a backpack containing a pressure cooker bomb packed with explosives to the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.

They detonated their bombs filled with nails, BB's and other pieces of metal used as shrapnel near the finish line of the race, killing three people and injuring more than 260.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police four days after the bombing.

A federal appeals court overturned Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's death sentence on July 31, 2020, on grounds that the the judge who oversaw the original case didn't properly screen jurors for potential biases and that the trial judge shouldn't have excluded evidence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev allegedly was involved in a triple homicide two years before the bombing.

As a result of the Supreme Court ruling, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will remain on federal death row at Colorado's supermax prison, according to NBC News.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker praised the ruling in a statement carried by The Boston Globe.

"While nothing can ever bring back those we lost on that terrible day, I hope today's decision will bring some sense of justice for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and their families," he said.

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty, said it was important to remember the victims of the 2013 bombing, "but not with more killing."

"Due process is dead in this country. One of [former President] Donald Trump's lasting legacies will be a U.S. Supreme Court that is nothing more than a greased rail to the death chamber," he said.

President Joe Biden has voiced his opposition to the death penalty, and in July, Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a moratorium on all federal executions, which would include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's.