and at times, it can be hard to understand and predict. here to help us understand what this means is nbc news, chief justice correspondent, pete williams. pete, thanks for being here. appreciate your time tonight. sure. what does happen next, now that the jury has made this decision? reporter: well, the jury made this decision under federal death penalty law. and if you look in the statute, the very next thing in how this trial works is the rule for mandatory appeal. there will be, must be, a mandatory appeal, and they will, i m sure, be raising a lot of issues about, for example, the kind of evidence that the judge excluded from the trial, it seemed pretty clear, although a great deal of this case was under seal, in the pre-trial phases, it seemed pretty clear that the defense lawyers wanted to show more about what a brutal person tamerlan tsarnaev was. and they wanted to bring up the fact that it s believed that he was involved in a triple homicide in waltham, massachusetts, a
the current members of the rnc, reportedly, this week, while the rnc was trying to come up with a solution to their big practical debate problem, members of the conservative steering committee at the phoenix meeting also took a little time to go to a talk by william koenig, who treated them to some wisdom about the blood moons and what they tell us about the future of the middle east. the right wing watch spotted this today on an rnc member s facebook page. quote, at the rnc conservative steering committee breakfast this morning in phoenix, we had several speakers. william koenig gave us a a history of the blood moons. so the republican national committee does have some hard decisions to make right now. maybe hearing from the blood moon guy is helping them to make their decision. maybe just talking about blood moons relaxes them enough to make hard decisions. but in any case, republicans are going to have to figure out their debate problem soon. maybe the moon can help. .and takes the
large storms to the united states. well, this week in phoenix, arizona, the republican conservative steering committee, which holds its meetings alongside the rnc and holds among its members a majority of the current members of the rnc, reportedly, this week, while the rnc was trying to come up with a solution to their big practical debate problem, members of the conservative steering committee at the phoenix meeting also took a little time to go to a talk by william koenig who treated to them some wisdom about the blood moons and what they tell us about the future of the middle east. right wing watch spotted this today on an rnc member s facebook page. quote, at the rnc conservative steering committee breakfast this morning in phoenix, we had several speakers. william koenig gave us a a history of the blood moons. so the republican national committee does have some hard decisions to make right now. maybe hearing from the blood moon guy is helping them to make their decision. maybe jus
people on federal death row. this is the highest profile federal death penalty case in a very, very long time. and it arrives today at a time when the death penalty is in more of a state of chaos than it has ever been. next month, the u.s. supreme court is due to rule on the constitutionality of lethal injection. they ve already heard oral arguments on that case. we re just waiting for the court to hand down its judgment. the supreme court could, conceivably, next month, abolish lethal injection nationwide. even if they don t, there s a legitimate question of whether lethal injection will disappear anyway, because the states who want to kill their prisoners by that method can t get the drugs to do it anymore. texas kills more prisoners than anyone. texas is seen as the well-oiled machine of capital punishment in this country. even texas right now, after they executed somebody earlier this week, texas is now down to the last dose they ve got of lethal injection drugs. texas only has eno
bolloxed up in the state system, the controversy over the right drug combinations for lethal injection. but look at the timothy mcveigh case. that was 12 years ago, or 14 years ago, that he was executed. he was executed very shortly after his trial. and i would, you know, i would think that given the high-profile nature of this crime, the government might want to move more quickly on this and might try to push it along. so, there s two conflicting things here. on the one hands, the odds are against it. on the other hand, there s a lot of momentum here. pete williams nbc news justice correspondent, pete, thank you, particularly late on a friday. really appreciate it. sure. thank you. on that last point that pete just raised there about how to predict what s going to happen here. since 1963 the federal government has only executed three people. the federal government went for almost 40 years without executing anyone before they executed timothy mcveigh. they killed him in 2001.