Ayanna Pressley Wants Joe Biden To Commute Boston Marathon Bomber’s Death Sentence

By Tom Joyce | January 3, 2025, 10:24 EST

The government shouldn’t put to death the Boston Marathon bomber, U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Hyde Park) says.

President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 federal death row inmates on December 23, 2024, but he left three people off the list, including radical Islamic terrorist Dzhokar Tsarnaev, who along with his older brother killed three people and injured scores more near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in April 2013.

Pressley urged Biden to commute the death sentences of all 40 federal death row inmates on December 10, 2024 — which would include Tsarnaev.

“State-sanctioned murder is not justice, and President Biden has an opportunity and an obligation to save lives and make good on his campaign promise to address the federal death penalty before leaving office,” Pressley said in a press release issued by her office. “With the incoming Administration planning to execute the 40 individuals on death row, we’re calling on the President to use his clemency authority to commute their death sentences and resentence them to a prison term. This is about saving lives and doing away with a cruel, racist, and fundamentally flawed punishment that has been disproportionately weaponized against Black, brown, and low-income families for far too long. We urge the President to act and shape his legacy as a compassionate leader who uses his power for healing, not harm.”

Also left off Biden’s commutation list were Charleston church shooter Dylan Roof and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers; the latter two are neo-Nazis.

After Biden commuted the sentences of 37 people on federal death row to life imprisonment, Pressley praised him, without mentioning the three people left off the list.

Here is what she said in a press release on December 23, the same day Biden announced the commutations:

 

There is no action more powerful or righteous than sparing someone’s life, and today President Biden is doing just that. The President’s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row is a historic and groundbreaking act of compassion that will save lives, address the deep racial disparities in our criminal legal system, and send a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity.

The death penalty is a racist, flawed, and fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society. For far too long, it has been disproportionately weaponized against Black and brown communities, exacerbated systemic inequities, and failed to make America any safer— which is why we’ve urged the president for years to work with us to abolish the federal death penalty. By taking this historic action, President Biden is demonstrating the type of moral leadership this moment demands.

This victory belongs to the organizers, advocates, and impacted families from every walk of life who work relentlessly to end the death penalty, and everyone who has worked with us to press for a more just criminal legal system. It is their unwavering commitment to the dignity and humanity of every person that has made this moment possible.

I thank President Biden for heeding our calls and leading with compassion, and I encourage him to continue using his clemency authority in the final days of his presidency.

 

Pressley has been on the record for years against capital punishment for Tsarnaev. 

When asked by Politico in July 2021 if the federal government should execute Tsarnaev, Pressley said that while his actions were “devastating,” “no nation should be in the business of executing people.”

It’s unlikely that Biden will commute Tsarnaev’s death sentence before leaving office on January 20, 2025.

 

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