Boston bomber death penalty case reflects changing SCOTUS role

 The Supreme Court decided today to reinstate the death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

John Blume is a professor of law at Cornell Law School and director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project. He has argued eight cases in front of the Supreme Court and numerous others in circuit courts.

Blume says:

“The Supreme Court today reversed the well-reasoned decision of the First Circuit Court of Appeals granting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a new sentencing hearing. There was no reason for the Supreme Court to take the case in the first place as there were no legal issues about which the federal courts were divided and the decision was very focused, as it should have been, on the facts and fairness of Tsarnaev’s trial.  

“This is another example in a growing line of cases involving the death penalty of the Supreme Court abandoning its traditional role of resolving important questions of law in favor of reversing decisions in cases where it does not like the result.”