Today's Boston Globe publishes the editorial, "Seeking death for Tsarnaev only delays Boston’s healing."
Nobody can ignore voices like Liz Norden’s. After two of her sons each lost a leg in the Boston Marathon bombing, the Stoneham resident urged federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. That’s just what the federal government did on Thursday, when, after months of deliberation, Attorney General Eric Holder authorized prosecutors to pursue a capital case against the 20-year-old Tsarnaev. He is accused of killing four and wounding dozens along with his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police shortly after the April 15 attack.
The attorney general faced an excruciating call, and the Justice Department should be applauded for seeking the input of victims and their families before announcing its decision. Still, a life prison term would have been the proper punishment to seek. A death-penalty prosecution instead raises the likelihood that Tsarnaev’s trial will drag on much longer, keeping the city’s wounds raw, and that he’ll eventually get the martyrdom he apparently sought. It also ignores the consistent view of the Commonwealth, which has repeatedly rejected capital punishment, and of Boston, where polls show residents strongly opposed to putting Tsarnaev to death.
Those voices matter, too, and Holder should have listened to them.
"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev deserves prison, not death penalty, if convicted," is the Newsday editorial.
It's easy to understand the decision to seek the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Federal officials allege that he and his brother coldbloodedly built, planted and detonated two pressure-cooker bombs that indiscriminately ended the lives of three people and injured 260 near the finish line of the iconic Boston Marathon.
Someone responsible for such wanton mass murder is not deserving of sympathy. But life in prison with no possibility of parole is a more fitting punishment, even for such heinous crimes. Little would be gained by putting him to death.
The Boston Herald says, "Death on the table."
The real surprise about yesterday’s decision to seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombing case is that it was made by this Justice Department and this attorney general from whom we have come to expect so little of either courage or common sense.
Perhaps Eric Holder simply feared the inevitable political backlash had he not given his permission to make this a capital case.
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen writes, "Holder’s political cowardice in seeking the death penalty."
Amazingly enough, the decision by Holder was announced a week or so after he reiterated his personal opposition to the death penalty. How he’s reconciled his personal views with his public policies I cannot know — and, I bet, neither can he.
Was he following orders from the boss? That would only be President Obama, because that’s the only one he reports to.
Was he reluctant to overrule his subordinates, especially the U.S. attorney in Boston? They might have pushed for the death penalty. If so, he ought to reconsider why he is the AG and not them. He’s where the buck stops.
Or was he reluctant to stand up against charges that he is soft on terrorism?
WBUR-FM posts, "Reactions To Tsarnaev Death Penalty Decision," a roundup of officials' responses.
The Boston Globe reports, "Possibility of death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev provokes a range of reactions," by Patricia Wen, Maria Cramer, Sarah Schweitzer and Martin Finucane.
"In Boston, Mixed Reaction to Death Penalty Decision in Marathon Bombings Case," by Jennifer Preston and Ashley Southall at the New York Times.
"Boston Marathon victims have mixed emotions about death penalty for Tsarnaev," is by Denise LaVoie of Associated Press, via the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel.
Earlier coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing case begins at the link.
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