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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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U.S. Seeking Death Penalty in Marathon Bombing

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Boston Marathon finish line
moments prior to the explosions
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Thursday that it would seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the man accused of killing and maiming people with homemade bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line last year.

The decision sets in motion the highest-profile federal death penalty case since Timothy J. McVeigh was prosecuted and executed for the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

The decision, however, is not cast in stone. In nearly half of federal death penalty cases, prosecutors withdraw the threat of execution before trial, typically because of a plea deal, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who had the final say on whether to authorize prosecutors to seek the death penalty, has said he personally opposes capital punishment, but he has authorized its use many times.

Prosecutors say Mr. Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, built bombs out of pressure cookers and detonated them 13 seconds apart among spectators at the finish line. The explosions killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

Source: The New York Times, January 30, 2014
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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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