He added that if Mr. Todashev’s confession was reliable enough to warrant a search warrant, it was likely reliable enough to be presented...
He added that if Mr. Todashev’s confession was reliable enough to warrant a search warrant, it was likely reliable enough to be presented to a jury.
More generally, he wrote that “death penalty proceedings are special”.
“Unlike evidentiary determinations made in other contexts,” Judge Breyer wrote, “a trial court’s decision to admit or exclude evidence in capital sentencing proceedings is taken in the context of a capital defendant’s constitutional right to plead against the death penalty”.
Judges Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan agreed with almost all of Judge Breyer’s opinion.
Federal government lawyers under the Trump administration had urged the Supreme Court to hear the case United States v. Tsarnaev, No. 20-443. The Biden administration prosecuted him, even though President Biden said he would work to abolish the death penalty and the Justice Department under his administration has federal executions suspended.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Friday that Mr Biden “believes Tsarnaev should be punished” but “has deep concerns about whether capital punishment is compatible with the values that are fundamental to our justice and our equity”.
The reaction in Boston was mixed and mixed.
Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat, said in a statement that the court’s decision was “deeply disappointing.”
“State-sanctioned murder,” she said, “is not justice, no matter how heinous the crime.”
Governor Charlie Baker, who supported the jury’s decision in 2015 to impose a death sentence on Mr Tsarnaev, welcomed the decision.
“While nothing can ever bring back those we lost on that terrible day, I hope today’s decision brings some sense of justice to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and their families. families,” he said.
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