The Supreme Court on Monday granted a request from the Department of Justice to review a lower court ruling that threw out a death sentence against the lone surviving perpetrator of the Boston marathon bombing.
The appeal was filed to the justices in October by the Trump administration after a Boston-based federal appeals court vacated the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who along with his since-deceased brother killed three and injured hundreds more in the 2013 attack.
The case presents a challenge for President Biden, the first president in U.S. history to publicly oppose the death penalty and call for an end to the practice.
Tsarnaev, 27, will serve out multiple life sentences in federal prison if his death sentence is not reinstated.
In vacating his capital punishment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled in July that the trial court failed to adequately gauge potential jury bias and the extent to which Tsarnaev may have been influenced by his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.