Who is representing the boston marathon bomber

Without that evidence before the jury, she said, the prosecution was able to portray the older brother as merely bossy. The defense, she said, was not allowed to show the jury that Dzhokhar was strongly influenced and led by his violent older brother. If it had, the defense would have said, 'Tamerlan is not just bossy, he's violent.

He's already committed violent jihad. Dzhokhar knows about it,' " she said. Indeed, as Justice Kagan observed, even without that evidence, "this jury actually produced a very nuanced verdict. It was only the acts in which the older brother was not on the scene in which death was appropriate. Addressing Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin, Kagan asked, what do you suppose the jury might have thought if they knew that the older brother had murdered three people?

As she noted, the Biden administration has imposed a temporary moratorium on federal executions, but the administration is still defending the Tsarnaev death sentence. Feigin did the best he could, explaining that the attorney general is reviewing the Trump administration's execution protocols, and in the meantime asking the Supreme Court to uphold the jury's verdict.

In court Wednesday, Tsarnaev's lawyer Ginger Anders said it was "central to the mitigation case" demonstrating that the brothers were not equal partners in the crime. She said that the district court's error compromised safeguards needed to ensure that her client received an appropriate penalty. But Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin called the evidence "unreliable hearsay" from a "dead man with a powerful motive to lie" and said the information was not central to the jury's final verdict.

He said the murders remain unsolved and that there was insufficient evidence to describe Tamelan's true role in the crime to the jury. Feigin said that the jury decided to recommend death because Dzhokhar positioned himself "behind a group of children, putting down his backpack.

In court, conservative justices seemed to agree with Feigin suggesting that the district court had been correct to exclude the evidence because it had never been proven and could be misleading to the jury. Justice Samuel Alito asked sarcastically at one point whether a district court had to adopt a policy of "anything goes" when it comes to admitting testimony. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he viewed a district court judge as having a "gatekeeping role" to keep out unsubstantiated evidence, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that rules allow information to be excluded if it is "misleading.

But liberal justice Elena Kagan said that the evidence was the kind that should be admitted, especially because it was so central to Tsarnaev's case. She wondered if it didn't represent a "classic case" of evidence that might be "highly relevant.

She said the jury should have been able to consider it during its own deliberations -- "that's what a jury is supposed to do. It is unclear whether, even if Tsarnaev's death penalty is reinstated, he would actually be put to death. In July, Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a moratorium on federal executions while the Justice Department reviews policies and procedures. The Trump administration, which carried out 13 executions in its last six months, quickly appealed.

Lingzi Lu, a year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a year-old restaurant manager from Medford; and 8-year-old Martin Richard, who had gone to watch the marathon with his family, were killed. More than people were injured. Boston Police Officer Dennis Simmonds also died a year after he was wounded in a confrontation with the bombers.

Police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat parked in a backyard, hours after his brother died.

Todashev told authorities that Tamerlan recruited him to rob the three men, and they bound the men with duct tape before Tamerlan slashed their throats to avoid leaving any witnesses. In a bizarre twist, while Todashev was being questioned in Florida, he was shot dead after authorities say he attacked the agents.

The agent who killed Todashev was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. No one has ever been charged in the triple murder. The judge overseeing the trial agreed. The Justice Department said different standards apply and that in asking for a search warrant, federal agents were not saying that every word of what Todashev said was true.