Supreme Court agrees to hear case over death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber

Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday said it would to take up the legal battle over the fate of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose death sentences were invalidated by a lower court last year over issues with jurors' pretrial media exposure.

The Justice Department asked the high court in October to review the ruling from a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, urging the justices not to allow the lower court to "have the last word" given the "profound stakes of the erroneous" ruling tossing out Tsarnaev's capital sentences. The Supreme Court, the Justice Department said, should "put this landmark case back on track toward its just conclusion" and reinstate his death sentence. The court is expected to hear arguments in the case in its next term, which begins in October.