Former Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral Breaks Down DOJ Brief On Tsarnaev Death Penalty

On Thursday, former Suffolk County sheriff Andrea Cabral spoke on the reasoning behind the Justice Department’s effort to have death penalty reinstated against convicted Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

“I think the devil’s in the details with this,” she said during the conversation on Boston Public Radio. “From the government’s point of view, the lower court was wrong in overturning the death penalty part of the sentence ... based on what they said was [trial Judge George] O’Toole’s failure to fully explore potential juror biases.”

Federal prosecutors filed their 48-page brief on Monday, siding with the Trump administration’s view that the 2015 jury determination that Tsarnaev’s crimes warrant the death penalty ought to be respected.

Last year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the jury’s initial ruling on the death penalty because of O’Tool’s supposed failure to ensure a lack of bias among jury members.

In pursuing their appeal, Cabral said the Department of Justice “is focusing on challenging the basis on which it got overturned.”

“Even though it doesn’t feel like this, it’s less about Tsarnaev than about potential to make bad law,” she added. “Whether people agree with it or not, those are the kinds of decisions that a federal body like the Department of Justice have to make all the time.”

The Supreme Court has already said it would take up the initial appeal, filed by former President Trump last year. The justices are expected to hear oral arguments this fall.

Cabral is the former sheriff of Suffolk County and the former Massachusetts secretary of public safety. She is currently CEO of the cannabis company Ascend.