Massachusetts

Motion Shows How Tsarnaev's Legal Team Will Try to Appeal Death Sentence

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt

What to Know

  • Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's legal team has filed a deadline extension due and revealed some issues they will bring up in his death sentence appeal.
  • Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 for his role in the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt.
  • Three people were killed and more than 260 others were injured when bombs went off on Boylston Street in 2013.

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's legal team has filed a motion revealing their strategy for appealing his death penalty sentence.

The motion, filed with the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston last week, asked that the Aug. 20 deadline for filing an opening brief be pushed to Nov. 18 due to the "voluminous" number of records his attorneys are sifting through, including 10,000 pages of transcripts.

Tsarnaev's lawyers have about 30 issues they've identified so far in Tsarnaev's appeal, including a pending motion to disclose allegations of his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev's involvement in a disturbing triple homicide and robbery in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 2011.

Some of the other issues raised in the filing included the Boston venue of Tsarnaev's trial, "multiple errors" in jury selection and Tsarnaev's confession to investigators.

Tsarnaev was given the death penalty after being convicted of 30 counts in 2015 in connection with the 2013 bombing that killed three people and injured 260 others and the shooting death of an MIT officer.

He is currently housed at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during a shootout with law enforcement officers in Watertown.

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