Tsarnaev death sentence “easily a decade away” from being carried out, UB expert says

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing on Friday, but those looking for closure should look elsewhere, according to University at Buffalo law professor Charles Ewing.

“I would say it will easily be a decade before the death sentence is even carried out,” Ewing said. “People looking for closure are not going to get it. When it eventually happens, this will be way out of people’s consciousness.”

Ewing expects a lengthy appeals process, but believes when all is said and done, the death penalty will be upheld. Appeals take particularly long in death cases because death requires the highest level of judicial scrutiny.  

The verdict was not surprising, Ewing said. Given the atrocity of the crime, it’s hard for anyone who supports the death penalty not to vote to impose it, he added.

“All the jurors were ‘death qualifying,’ which means all of them had to be willing to impose the death penalty in order to serve,” he said. “Given that, it seems to me that the deck was pretty stacked against this young man.”