New York truck bomber spared death penalty after jury fails to reach unanimous decision

A jury spared Seifullo Saipov from the death penalty Monday after it could not reach a unanimous decision during a penalty phase hearing for the 2017 Halloween terror attack in New York that killed eight people.

The jury agreed that “life in prison without the possibility of parole is a severe punishment,” according to the sentencing form. He also agreed that Saipov deliberately killed his victims after “considerable planning and forethought” and did it for ISIS. However, the jury did not unanimously find that Saipov poses a future threat or is likely to commit violence in prison.

The death sentence had to be unanimous. Instead, Saipov will spend his life in prison without the possibility of parole at ADX in Colorado.

Saipov was convicted in January of killing eight people and attempting to kill 18 more in an Islamic State-inspired truck attack on a bike path along the Hudson River. This is the deadliest terrorist attack in New York since September 11, 2001.

Of the 28 counts he was found guilty of, nine were punishable by death.

Jurors, who began deliberations on March 8, had to start the next day after an upset juror was acquitted after telling the court his brother had suffered a heart attack.

Citing a strict interpretation of federal death penalty law, the defense argued that sentencing should go “to a jury that finds the defendant guilty.” was denied. An alternate was added to the jury for the final deliberations.

Judge Vernon Broderick said, “There are three or four circuit courts that have looked at this issue and found that courts can use the alternative even if they are not sitting at trial.”

After deliberating on March 8, jurors sent a note to the judge asking if they could discuss whether the current method of executing federal inmates is lethal injection. They also asked if Attorney General Merrick Garland’s death penalty moratorium could be noted.

In response, Broderick asked jurors to ignore both lethal injection and the Biden administration’s moratorium on executions, saying they were “inappropriate considerations for your discussion.” “.

Since at least 1963, all federal executions have been carried out by lethal injection.

Garland announced a moratorium on the death penalty in September 2021 so officials could review policies and procedures, but upheld previous administration decisions to execute Charleston church shooter Saipov. Dylann Roof and Boston Marathon suicide bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Hole told the jury that Saipov deserved the death penalty for his “brutal slaughter of civilians.”

“Murder is always horrible, but when a defendant chooses to kill multiple people, he exposes himself to an even greater punishment,” Hole said. “He stole eight lives.”

Defense attorney David Patton, meanwhile, told jurors they had “tremendous responsibility and power” before them and they should spare Saipov the death penalty and let him “die in obscurity.” darkness, not as a hero, not as a martyr.”

“There was no need to kill Seifullo Saipov, not for our safety or anyone else’s, not for justice,” Patton said. “Then please decide that meeting death with more death is not the answer.”

The death sentence for Saipov, an Uzbek national, would be the first in decades by a federal judge in New York. A federal jury in Brooklyn upheld the death penalty for the 2007 and 2013 murders of two NYPD detectives, but both convictions were overturned on appeal.

The last federal execution in New York was in 1953, when husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union during the Cold War.