Donald Trump demanded on Sunday that the perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing be sentenced to death again, criticizing the recent overturn of his sentence by an appeals court.
"So many lives lost or ruined": the death penalty "has rarely been so deserved" as for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, tweeted the US president, who is leading a re-election campaign focused on "firmness".
Three dead and 262 injured
"The federal government must again demand the death penalty (...) our country cannot leave the appeal decision in force", he said. Referring in particular to problems in the selection of jurors, a federal appeals court in Boston on Friday overturned part of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's judgment and referred his case to a court of first instance for reconsideration.
Whatever the outcome, he will remain sentenced, at a minimum, to life imprisonment. A student of Chechen origin, he was sentenced to death in June 2015 for having planted, with his older brother, Tamerlan, two homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston marathon, killing three and injuring 264.
Use of the reinforced death penalty?
His defense has always claimed that the young man, aged 19 at the time (27 today), was under the influence of his eldest. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed by law enforcement three days after the attack, following a manhunt in the suburbs of Boston. While on the run the two brothers shot dead a policeman.
Donald Trump regularly calls for an increased use of the death penalty and with the approach of the November 3 election, his government seems determined to carry out a record number of federal executions.
Three people executed for a federal crime since 1988
Returning to a practice that had been interrupted for seventeen years, the Republican administration has already carried out three lethal injections in July. Four more are planned for August and September.
In the United States, most crimes are tried at the state level, with federal courts hearing only the most serious acts or committed on Indian reservations or on military bases. Since 1988, only three people have been executed for a federal crime.
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