After 9/11, the Boston Marathon Bombing on April 15, 2013, was definitely the first big terroristic attack that shocked the United States. A massive collective event was hit, and the effects were evident in everyone’s psychology. That’s what led Netflix to release the documentary American Manhunt, The Boston Marathon Bombing, near the 10th anniversary of the attack. And understandably, the attention was moved back to the responsible: Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Chechen terrorists who placed the bombs close to the finish line of the 2013 Marathon. And while Tamerlan died during the police shooting some days later, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is still alive: where is he now, and what’s the situation about the sentence today? Is the death sentence confirmed? Let’s find out.
You can watch the official trailer for American Manhunt – The Boston Marathon Bombing here on Youtube.
The Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev now: is he still alive, and what’s with the death sentence?
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is the convicted terrorist who, along with his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, carried out the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, 2013. He’s currently imprisoned in the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, commonly known as ADX Florence, in Colorado.
The 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings killed three people and injured hundreds more. After a massive manhunt, Dzhokhar was arrested on April 19, 2013, and was later found guilty of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. Admittedly, the Tsarnaev brothers intended to detonate explosives in Times Square in New York City.
During the trial, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to all 30 counts against him, including four counts of murder. However, among the evidence collected in the boat where he was arrested, there was a handwritten note where he took responsibility for the bombings as an act of revenge against the U.S. military actions in the middle-east Islamic countries. “We Muslims are one body; you hurt one, you hurt us all,” he wrote in that note. You can find the complete content of that note here on boston.com.
There has been a lot of attention in the media about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s sentence. After a lengthy trial, on April 8, 2015, Tsarnaev was found guilty on all thirty counts of the indictment. The jury heavily discussed the possibility of the death penalty: after a long debate, on May 15, 2015, the jury recommended that Tsarnaev be sentenced to death. However, not all jurors agreed with that decision in those days.
Years later, in 2019, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appealed his sentence on several grounds: the trial location, the jury selection, and the decision of the judge to exclude evidence from a triple murder that occurred in 2011 involving his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, which would have proven that Dzhokhar acted under the influence of his older brother.
On July 31, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals overturned the death sentence and ordered a retrial, confirming life imprisonment but requesting a new evaluation related to his death sentence. After more appeals have been considered, the latest development about the verdict is that on March 4, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled reversed the First Circuit’s decision, reinstating the death penalty.Â
As of today, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev death sentence is confirmed. However, more appeals keep coming from his legal team, as this recent piece of news on apnews.com confirms. If more developments arrive, we will update you in this article.
Read other true stories behind movies and TV series on Auralcrave
