The defense also filed a request for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict – which is a request filed by defense lawyers asking a judge to reverse or amend the jury’s verdict.
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U.S. District Judge George O’Toole did not immediately rule on the request.
The case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev returns to federal court in Boston Tuesday where the judge in the case will review several motions filed after Tsarnaev was sentenced to death in June. Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the attack.
Tsarnaev and his brother killed three people and injured 260 more after placing bombs at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon.
Friends and family members of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier console each other at the memorial for him in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 29. The ruling centered on the legal definition of a “crime of violence”.
The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, but Tsarnaev isn’t expected to attend. Tsarnaev’s lawyers are arguing 15 convictions should be struck down, and that his death sentence was unfairly influenced by those 15 convictions.
During the trial, Tsarnaev’s lawyers admitted that he and his older brother carried out the bombings, but said his brother was the mastermind and Dzhokhar did not deserve the death penalty.
In addition to the defense motions, prosecutors argued in court Tuesday morning for restitution to be paid to the bombing victims.
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Tsarnaev is being held at the “Supermax” high-security prison in Florence, Colorado, while his attorneys appeal his death sentence.
