This bit about Dzokhar Tsarnaev (who, by the way, just got the death penalty) is actually surprising:
Don’t expect the execution to take place soon. The US has sentenced nearly 100 people to death since Congress authorized the death penalty for certain crimes in the late 1980s, but have executed only three. Tsarnaev’s surprising allocution at sentencing will moot any possible claims of innocence on appeal, but there will be enough claims to keep appellate attorneys busy for a very long time. Ironically, Tsarnaev’s youth makes it at least somewhat more likely that he’ll face an actual execution than other death-penalty defendants as he’s much more likely to survive all of the appeals options that will unfold. We’ll be hearing about Tsarnaev for a long, long time.
…You’d think that the man would be ready to meet his Maker in the afterlife, and get what he truly deserves for his actions. But no, there’s apparently going to be appeals for the next few decades, instead. Odd, that.
The appeals don’t have to be filed by him. And there are any number of anti death penalty activists who have a vested interest in doing so.