WASHINGTON, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated on Friday the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The 6-3 ruling was along conservative-liberal lines.
"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.
"The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury," Thomas continued. "He received one."
A federal appeals court tossed the death sentence of Tsarnaev in 2020 by ruling that his trial "did not meet the standard" of fairness, and ordered a new penalty-phase trial.
The U.S. Justice Department asked last year the Supreme Court to uphold the death penalty for Tsarnaev.
The federal appeals court "improperly vacated the capital sentences recommended by the jury in one of the most important terrorism prosecutions in our Nation's history," the Justice Department argued at that time.
Tsarnaev had been indicted on 30 counts, including using a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death.
During the Boston Marathon in 2013, Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, detonated twin explosive devices near the finish line.
Three people, including an 8-year-old child, were killed, and another 260 people were injured.
The bombers fled the scene. Tamerlan died in a gunfight with police during a manhunt.
Tsarnaev, 28, is serving a life sentence in the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. ■