Without a unanimous jury decision on the death penalty Monday, Saipov receives an automatic sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole
Posted BY: | NwoReport
A split among jurors means there will be no death penalty for an Islamic extremist who maniacally raced a truck along a popular New York City bike path, killing eight people and maiming others.
The decision means Sayfullo Saipov, 35, an Uzbekistan citizen who lived in New Jersey, gets an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the October 2017 attack. Jurors told the judge Monday that they were unable to reach the unanimous verdict required for a death sentence.
Jurors convicted Saipov in late January of killing eight individuals in Lower Manhattan in a 2017 terrorist attack, but the death penalty phase of deliberations started last week, on March 1. The panel had to start those talks over less than a full day in because of a missing juror whose absence later was excused but required an alternate.
The defense had asked for a mistrial. Jurors continued deliberations Thursday but couldn’t reach a decision. Talks resumed Monday morning.
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Lawyers for Saipov, an Uzbekistan citizen, never contested that he killed eight people. Among them: a woman visiting from Belgium with her family, five friends from Argentina, and two Americans. Eighteen others were seriously injured.
Saipov’s attorneys asked jurors to spare him the death penalty, noting how several members of his family including his father and sisters expressed hope that someday he would realize how wrong he was to carry out a terrorist attack hoping to win favor with the Islamic State group.
