Boston District Attorney Appointed to Fight Marathon Bomber’s Death Penalty Appeal

July 30, 2024 12:00 PM • Last updated: July 30, 2024 12:00 PM

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in this photo released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on April 19, 2013. (FBI via AP, file)

BOSTON — A veteran prosecutor who pilloried a Pentagon slicker and a former Harvard professor with ties to China have been tasked with the last-ditch appeal of the Boston Marathon bomber’s death sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Casey is the “United States Attorney” for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has won his appeal to determine whether he deserves a new trial on the death penalty.

Casey, from the Boston office, just got the mail, according to a one-page update to Tsarnaev’s voluminous federal filing. Tsarnaev is trying to avoid the electric chair or, more likely, lethal injection. He’s now incarcerated in a super-max in Colorado.

Casey recently won a guilty plea against Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira, who must serve at least 11 years in prison. He must also face a military court-martial.

Casey is also named in the case against Dr. Charles Lieber, former chairman of Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Lieber was found guilty last year of lying to federal authorities about his ties to China’s Wuhan University of Technology and failing to report income. He was sentenced to two days in jail and six months of home confinement.

Now Casey must face the marathon bomber who questioned the bias of two jurors in his 2015 trial, which saw him sentenced to death.

The appeals court said that “the district court’s investigation fell short of what was constitutionally required” on this one issue. If there is bias, the court added, Tsarnaev “will be entitled to a new criminal trial.”

The alleged bias stems from social media posts about the bombing by two jurors.

The appeals court added that “regardless of the outcome, (Tsarnaev) will spend the rest of his life in prison.”