Former Suffolk County Sheriff and Secretary of Public Safety Andrea Cabral called into Boston Public Radio on Monday and weighed in on the decision made Friday by the First U.S. Circuit of Appeals to overturn the death penalty for Dzhokar Tsarnaev, who helped carry out the Boston Marathon bomb attack in 2013, alongside his brother Tamerlan.
Cabral said she agreed with the court's reasoning, that U.S. District Judge George O’Toole’s jury selection process fell short of insuring impartiality.
“Trying to drill down into whether or not people have actually made up their minds, and are therefore biased ... takes a substantial effort," Cabral said. "And this three-judge panel said that judge O’Toole made a ‘diligent effort,’ but that given all of the factors that weighed toward undue influence, or jurors having made up their minds, it wasn’t enough. "
