Boston Marathon Bomber’s Attorneys Seek to Remove Judge From Case

During legal proceedings on Wednesday in Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence, defense attorneys said U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole, who has been overseeing the case, should be recused.
According to the Associated Press (AP), the request centered on remarks O’Toole allegedly made in public forums and podcasts, which Tsarnaev’s legal team argues could indicate bias.
Prosecutors, while not opposed to a hearing on the matter, dismissed the motion as baseless, the AP reported.
Judge O’Toole has scheduled a hearing for next month to address the recusal request, aiming to quickly resolve the issue.
“I want to dispose of that issue immediately, one way or another,” O’Toole stated during the proceedings. He also ordered that all future filings related to the case be sealed to maintain the integrity of the legal process.
Brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were responsible for the April 15, 2013, tragedy when two homemade pressure cooker bombs exploded at the annual Boston Marathon near the 117th marathon’s finish line.
The bombing resulted in the deaths of three spectators and the injuries of about 260 innocent victims. After security camera footage connected the two suspects to the bombing, federal and state law enforcement pursued the Tsarnaev brothers.
However, after an intense gun battle days later in the Boston suburb of Watertown, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died from gunshot wounds. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was then captured and faced trial, where he was found guilty of 30 federal charges and sentenced to death. While on death row, Dzhokhar has been incarcerated at a penitentiary prison in Colorado.
Wednesday’s motion comes after a federal appeals court in March ordered Judge O’Toole to investigate claims of juror bias and reconsider whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence should stand. The appeals court suggested that if jurors were improperly seated, Tsarnaev’s sentence could be vacated, leading to a new penalty-phase trial to determine if Tsarnaev should be sentenced to death.
Over the years the case has seen multiple legal twists, including a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that reinstated Tsarnaev’s death sentence after the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals had previously thrown it out, finding then that the trial judge did not sufficiently question jurors about their exposure to news coverage of the bombing.
However, the Supreme Court justices voted 6-3 in 2022 when they ruled that the 1st Circuit’s decision was wrong.
Meanwhile, the ongoing appeals and legal motions are focused on the fairness of the trial and the subsequent sentencing process as Tsarnaev’s lawyers urged the 1st Circuit to examine issues the Supreme Court didn’t consider.
These issues included whether the trial judge wrongly forced the trial to be held in Boston and wrongly denied defense challenges to seating two jurors they say lied during questioning. In addition, Tsarnaev’s defense continues to argue that he was unduly influenced by his older brother.
Tsarnaev remains convicted of 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt.