A federal appeals court has rejected a motion by Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s legal team to disqualify the judge presiding over his death sentence appeal.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers argued for Judge George O’Toole’s removal due to his participation in a podcast and public forums about organizing complex jury trials, as reported by WCVB.
The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, in their succinct two-page decision, asserted that Judge O’Toole’s involvement in “two panel discussions and a podcast related to complex jury trial organization and social media issues” did not qualify as a reason for his disqualification, as noted by The Associated Press.
The previous year, the appeals court had instructed O’Toole to examine potential juror biases affecting the penalty phase of Tsarnaev’s trial and, if such bias was confirmed, to initiate a fresh penalty trial.
Convicted in 2015 for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that claimed three lives, including that of an 8-year-old boy, and injured hundreds, Tsarnaev’s death sentence was set aside by the appeals court in 2020. They determined jurors weren’t adequately vetted for media bias about the case, but the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death sentence two years later.
The appeals court later ordered O’Toole to look at “the possible bias of two jurors at issue.”
While Tsarnaev’s conviction remains uncontested by his attorneys, they argue his actions were heavily influenced by his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died following a police shootout days post-bombing. At the time of the attack, Tamerlan was 26, and Dzhokhar, 19.
Tsarnaev was convicted on all 30 counts against him and is currently on death row at a supermax prison in Colorado.
