NEW YORK-- - Boston Marathon bomber Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death on Friday. But his execution may not happen for decades - if ever.
A lengthy appellate process, an effective moratorium on federal executions and declining support among Americans for capital punishment all suggest that Tsarnaev's death by lethal injection is far from a sure thing, according to death penaltyexperts. Instead, it may end as a purely symbolic judgment.
"With every passing year, the likelihood of execution will diminish," said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University who has studied capital punishment.
That said, many of the issues that typically draw criticismsof death penalty sentences, such as inadequate legal counsel and post-conviction exonerations, are not present in the Tsarnaev case. His legal team included one of the most respected death penalty lawyers in the country, Judy Clarke, and she did not attempt to argue his innocence at trial.
The absence of those criticisms, along with the sheer horror of the crime, could make Tsarnaev the "perfect test case" for the future of capital punishment, said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University who specializes in federal
sentencing.
"I think it's 50-50," he said. "This could be the case that people have in mind when they say we reserve the death penalty for the worst of the worst."
Tsarnaev was sentenced to death by a federal jury for helping carry out the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded 264 others in the crowds at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The same jury found Tsarnaev guilty last month in the bombing, which was one of the highest-profile attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
While Massachusetts has banned the death penalty, Tsarnaev was convicted of federal crimes, which can carry a death sentence under U.S. law.
REUTERS
