Boston Bomber Tsarnaev's Lawyers Appeal Death Sentence, Call For Retrial - Reports

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th December, 2018) Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers said in an appeal filed on Thursday that their client should be retried and spared a death sentence because he could not have received a fair trial in the city affected by the tragedy, local media reported on Thursday.

"Forcing this case to trial in a venue still suffering from the bombings was the District Court's first fundamental error, and it deprived Tsarnaev of an impartial jury and a reliable verdict, in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments," the lawyers said in a brief as quoted by the Boston Herald.

The attorneys explained that the bombings were the subject of constant and widespread publicity that could have affected jurors' opinions.

The Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, killed three people and injured hundreds of others. Dzhokhar and his older brother Tamerlan were found guilty of the attack. Tamerlan was killed by police while on the run on April 19 of the same year, while Dzhokhar was arrested the following day and sentenced to death by lethal injection in May 2015.

Since then, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 25, has been held in solitary confinement maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.