Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree is asking outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to spare the life of alleged Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Ogletree is scheduled to meet with Holder in Washington on Friday.
Attorney General Eric Holder has already called for a moratorium on the death penalty pending the outcome of a Supreme Court ruling on the use of lethal injection drugs in Oklahoma. Ogletree says he is asking the nation’s top law enforcement official to take it a step further and make it permanent.
In an interview in a car from Logan Airport to Cambridge — a reflection of his busy schedule — Ogletree said during his meeting at the Justice Department he will ask Holder to take the death penalty off the table in the trial of Boston Marathon bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — just a few days away.
Ogletree, a mentor to President Barack Obama at Harvard Law School, has worked alongside Holder on various legal matters over the years. Ogletree vehemently opposes capital punishment. Holder has authorized the death penalty in several cases but says he is personally opposed to it.
In 2014, Obama asked the Justice Department to review the application of the death penalty in light of the botched execution in Oklahoma. That review is ongoing.
Tsarnaev is charged with killing four people and injuring 260 others. Ogletree will meet with Holder Friday at the Justice Department to press for an alternative to a death sentence. On Wednesday the Boston Bar Association also repeated its call for the Justice Department not to seek the death penalty for Tsarnaev.
