Marathon Bomber, CIA Black Sites to Kick Off Supreme Court Term

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to reinstate Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s capital sentences on Oct. 13, releasing the schedule for its first month of arguments for the 2021 term.

The court announced on Tuesday that the first sitting would also include the case of a long-detained terror suspect who’s seeking information about CIA torture at an alleged “black site” abroad in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The justices also will consider a Kentucky abortion case, which is a prelude to a second challenge out of Mississippi that could limit or even overturn a half-century of precedent dating to the landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade.

The sitting of nine arguments begins Oct. 4 and runs through the 13th. It’s not clear yet if the justices will hear cases in person or continue with remote arguments conducted by phone during the pandemic.

Marathon Bomber

Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, killed four and injured hundreds more in the 2013 bombing along the famed marathon route. Tamerlan was killed during a confrontation with police, and a federal jury convicted Dzhokhar of multiple counts and he was sentenced to death.

The Boston-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated those sentences, saying the trial court didn’t do enough to ensure that jurors weren’t impermissibly biased. The justices will review that ruling.

The high court will also consider the case of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, better known as Abu Zubaydah, who was the first “War on Terror” detainee subjected to torture abroad by U.S. intelligence, according to Supreme Court filings.

Zubaydah is seeking information about alleged CIA “black sites” abroad in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The justices will consider that case Oct. 6.

Additionally, the justices will consider Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s request to defend the state’s abortion law. The law, which restricts the use of the most common type of second-trimester abortion, was struck down in 2019.

The Sixth Circuit rejected Cameron’s attempts to defend the law after a change in gubernatorial administrations. The court said he’d waited too long to make his request. The Supreme Court will review that ruling Oct. 12.