Overview

• The First Circuit denied Tsarnaev’s request to remove Judge George O’Toole, ruling that his comments on jury trials and social media did not meet the exacting standard for recusal.
• Judge O’Toole will continue overseeing a court-ordered investigation into claims that two jurors in the 2015 trial were biased during selection.
• If those jurors are found improper, Tsarnaev must receive a new penalty-phase trial to determine whether he faces life imprisonment or execution.
• Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death in 2015 for the Boston Marathon bombing, had his penalty thrown out by the First Circuit in 2020, and saw it reinstated by the Supreme Court in 2022.
• He remains on death row at a Colorado supermax prison as the legal proceedings over his sentence move toward a potential rehearing.