BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A federal appeals court has vacated the death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man convicted in the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
The panel of judges in Boston issued the decision on Friday, about six months after Tsarnaev's lawyers had argued that the intensity of the media coverage at the time had made a fair trial impossible.
In 2015, Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 charges in connection with the attacks at the Boston Marathon, which killed three people and injured more than 250 others.
However, his lawyers argued that comments made on social media by two of the jurors before the trial began suggested they had strongly-formed opinions soon after the bombings had happened.
The comments included more than 20 posts made by the jury's chief spokesperson, one of which called Tsarnaev a “piece of garbage.”
“Make no mistake," said the ruling, "Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution."
The court has ordered a new penalty phase trial.
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