A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's case to be returned to a lower court to probe claims of juror bias and determine whether his death sentence should stand. The ruling from the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals keeps intact Tsarnaev's death sentence for now. But the judge's found that further investigation is needed to determine whether two jurors should have been stricken for biases.
The moratorium came after former President Donald Trump administration’s put to death 13 inmates in its final six months. Oral arguments before the three-judge 1st Circuit panel more than a year ago focused on two jurors Tsarnaev’s lawyers say were dishonest during the lengthy jury selection process. One of them said she had not commented about the case online, while Tsarnaev’s attorneys say she had retweeted a post calling Tsarnaev a “piece of garbage.