During Wednesday’s death penalty hearing for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, defense attorneys argued that U.S. District Judge George O’Toole, who was presiding over the case, should be declared biased.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the request revolved around alleged statements made by O’Toole in public forums and podcasts that Tsarnaev’s legal team believes could indicate bias.

While prosecutors are not opposed to a hearing on the matter, they rejected the request as unfounded, AP reported.

Judge O’Toole has scheduled a hearing for next month to hear the motion to dismiss and resolve the matter quickly.

“I want to get this matter resolved immediately, one way or another,” O’Toole said during the hearing. He also ordered that all future files related to the case be sealed to preserve the integrity of the legal process.

Brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were responsible for the tragedy on April 15, 2013, when two homemade pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the 117th annual Boston Marathon.

Three bystanders were killed in the bombing and around 260 innocent victims were injured. After the two suspects were linked to the attack by surveillance cameras, federal and state police pursued the Tsarnaev brothers.

However, after a fierce gun battle a few days later in the Boston suburb of Watertown, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died of gunshot wounds. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was subsequently captured and tried, where he was found guilty on 30 federal charges and sentenced to death. During his time on death row, Dzhokhar was incarcerated in a Colorado penitentiary.

Wednesday’s motion comes after a federal appeals court in March ordered Judge O’Toole to investigate allegations of jury bias and reconsider whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence should stand. The appeals court suggested that if the jury was improperly seated, Tsarnaev’s verdict could be overturned. That would lead to a new criminal trial to decide whether Tsarnaev should be sentenced to death.

Over the years, the case has undergone several legal twists and turns, including a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision reinstating Tsarnaev’s death sentence after the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals had previously thrown it out on the grounds that the trial judge did not adequately question jurors about their knowledge of news coverage of the bombing.

However, in 2022, the Supreme Court justices ruled 6-3 that the 1st Circuit’s decision was wrong.

Meanwhile, ongoing appeals and appellate proceedings are focusing on the fairness of the trial and subsequent sentencing, while Tsarnaev’s lawyers have urged the 1st Circuit to consider issues the Supreme Court has failed to consider.

Those questions included whether the trial judge improperly forced the trial to be held in Boston and improperly rejected the defense’s objections to seating two jurors who they said lied during questioning. In addition, Tsarnaev’s defense continues to argue that he was unduly influenced by his older brother.

Tsarnaev remains guilty on 30 counts, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction, as well as the killing of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier during the Tsarnaev brothers’ escape attempt.