Should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev be executed? Joe Biden won't say

After the news broke that convicted Boston Marathon bomber and mass murderer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence had been set aside, an immediate debate broke out about whether the feds should put him on trial again and take another run at helping the maniac shuffle off this mortal coil. We didn’t have to wait long for President Trump to weigh in on the issue and he wasn’t in the least ambiguous about where he stands.

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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1290011585587666946

Not so for his presumptive opponent in November, however. Joe Biden has had multiple opportunities to offer his take on the subject, but has ducked the question every time. And considering that it could potentially be his Department of Justice handling the matter if he wins in November, you might think it would be worth hearing his thoughts. But the silence has been almost deafening. (Free Beacon)

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has been silent on the news that Boston Marathon bombing perpetrator Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will need a new trial in order to be executed—a trial Biden’s Justice Department would prosecute, if the Democrat is elected.

The overturning of Tsarnaev’s capital sentence has gone unmentioned by Biden’s campaign in press releases and on social media since Friday’s ruling. The campaign also did not respond to inquiries from the Washington Free Beacon as to whether Biden would pursue the death penalty for Tsarnaev if elected.

The ruling and Tsarnaev’s crime also went unmentioned in Biden’s Sunday remarks on the anniversary of the El Paso Walmart shooting.

While I agree that Biden should have made his position on the question clear by now, the fact that we don’t have that answer isn’t entirely his fault. We have a press corps that seems to be content to let him hide out in his basement and issue campaign advertisements while in his bunker. On the rare instances when he agrees to take any questions from reporters, he’s mostly hit with softballs and invited to talk about how terrible the Bad Orange Man is. If anyone from the major newspapers and cable outlets were really interested in covering this situation, they could have pressed his campaign for an answer.

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The thing is, it appears that Biden’s handlers are seeking to avoid yet another example of Biden shifting all of his political beliefs to gratify the far left. When Joe was in the Senate he was a supporter of the death penalty where applicable. And he didn’t used to be shy about his feelings regarding the Boston Marathon bombers either. In 2013 he described them as “twisted, perverted, cowardly, knock-off jihadis.”

But now it’s 2020, and Biden has shifted very far to the left of his old beliefs. The death penalty has never been popular on the left and it’s even less so today. So Uncle Joe has to move with the times and flip his positions to what his base wants to hear. But if he comes out and takes a position on this question he’s going to undermine either the moderates he needs in the swing states or his base that has to drive what little enthusiasm exists for his candidacy.

This really shouldn’t be that hard of a call for anyone who isn’t simply morally opposed to capital punishment in any and all cases. The idea that Tsarnaev is somehow not guilty or that we “got the wrong guy” is clearly laughable. There’s simply too much evidence to be brushed aside over the worry that we might put an innocent person to death. The change of venue request that Tsarnaev’s lawyers submitted doesn’t seem as if it would have made any difference in the outcome. But that’s where things stand now, and Joe Biden needs to let the voters know how his Department of Justice will be handling the case if he’s sworn in as the next President. But so far we’re only getting crickets.

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