Parents of Boston bombing victim oppose death penalty for Tsarnaev
Family argues they can’t move on unless defendant fades from ‘spotlight’
BOSTON— For the past few months, Bill and Denise Richard have let the U.S. government use the death of their son Martin to drive home the heinous and depraved nature of the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon.
Martin, who was 8, was with his family cheering on the runners when the menacing figure of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev entered the picture. Videos shown in court showed Tsarnaev lurking behind the family for four minutes before a bomb went off, killing Martin.
The government showcased Martin’s death in its opening and closing arguments at Tsarnaev’s trial. Prosecutors put Bill Richard on the stand. They had the medical examiner describe in excruciating detail what the bomb did to Martin. They showed the jury the burned clothes that Martin had been wearing.
Now, as the government prepares to make its case for why Tsarnaev should be put to death, the Richard family says it has had enough.
In an open letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, printed Friday on the front page of the Boston Globe, the Richards asked the government to stop seeking the death penalty.
“We are in favour of and would support the Department of Justice in taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all of his rights to appeal,” they wrote.
They argued not against the death penalty itself but against what the continued pursuit of it would mean for them — endless appeals, never letting them move on, forcing their two remaining children “to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them.”
“As long as the defendant is in the spotlight, we have no choice but to live a story told on his terms, not ours,” the couple wrote. “The minute the defendant fades from our news- papers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family.”
A jury convicted Tsarnaev on April 8 of all 30 counts against him in connection with the bombing, which killed two other people and injured 264 others, many of them grievously.
The government is preparing for the second phase of the trial, which is to begin Tuesday. The same jury is to decide whether to sentence Tsarnaev to life in prison or condemn him to death.
In a statement, Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, gave no indication that the government would drop the death penalty.