Death Penalty for Boston Bomber a Complicated Question

Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta, APWhen gang members Richard Tipton, Cory Johnson and James Roane were sentenced to death in 1993 for their roles in multiple murders, they took their places on federal death row, where they have remained for two decades.

A series of appeals and a more recent challenge to the lethal injection protocol used in federal executions have helped prolonged their lives in a place where — despite its designation — executions are rarely carried out.

The high-security wing at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., now represents an increasingly complicated backdrop for a decision Attorney General Eric Holder is set to make in the next several weeks on whether to pursue the death penalty in the federal government’s prosecution of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

There is little argument about the strength of the case against Tsarnaev, charged with 30 criminal counts in connection with the blasts that killed three and wounded more than 260 others. There are photographs of Tsarnaev allegedly planting explosives at the site of one of the bombings. Yet the government’s record in carrying out the death penalty is mixed at best, and there are conflicting views about whether the often-delayed penalty is an appropriate punishment if the 20-year-old defendant is convicted in the bombing case.

Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, only three offenders have been executed and none in the past 10 years.

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