The Boston Bar Association requested the U.S. Department of Justice seek a life sentence without parole rather than the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 21-year-old accused of placing two bombs at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon and killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, according to a Wednesday press release.

Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to the 30 federal counts levied against him, The Daily Free Press reported on July 10, 2013. Following several attempts from Tsarnaev’s defense team to move the location of the trial, all of which were denied, opening statements are set to begin Wednesday at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse.

Julia Huston, president of the BBA, said its stance is not a new one, because BBA has historically opposed the death penalty for the past 40 years.

“The federal government has not thought to impose the death penalty in Massachusetts very often,” she said. “The Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial is obviously a very high-profile trial, and it obviously has the attention of the community. When it was announced last year that the Justice Department would be seeking the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the BBA released a statement opposing application of the death penalty. Now that the trial is near, we believe that it is time to revisit that decision again.”

Huston said another factor in re-asserting its stance on capital punishment was the resignation of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Holder announced his resignation in September 2o14 and U.S. President Barack Obama’s nominee to assume the position, U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, is in the midst of U.S. Senate confirmation hearings.

“A new attorney general, Loretta Lynch, is undergoing confirmation hearings, and it is our hope that she will bring a different perspective on this issue and be willing to take a fresh look at whether the death penalty should be imposed in this case,” she said.

The BBA refers to three specific reasons for opposing the death penalty, which include the inevitability of error in criminal cases, the disparate impact on minority groups and the financial burden of the act, Huston said.

Paul Gugliuzza, an associate professor at the Boston University School of Law, said though the BBA’s request will be taken into consideration, he does not believe it will be implemented.

“Although I’m sure the DOJ will consider the request, I think it is extremely unlikely that it will be granted. The federal government has been preparing for a death penalty trial for nearly two years,” Gugliuzza wrote in an email. “If the government was willing to forgo seeking the death penalty, it would have done so much earlier.”

Gugliuzza said the DOJ could have offered a plea bargain with a life sentence in exchange for forgoing the death penalty.

“Forgoing the death penalty also would have made jury selection much, much easier and quicker than it has been,” he said. “From the government’s perspective, to change course at this point makes no sense.”

High-profile cases such as this offer various organizations, as well as the public, an opportunity to remind others of their views pertaining to the death penalty, Gugliuzza said.

“Many people and organizations oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and make that view widely known,” he said.

Several residents said they agreed with the BBA’s stance on the death penalty in regard to the Tsarnaev case.

Eric Garlow, 25, of Brighton, said the death penalty should never be considered for criminal cases.

“I don’t believe that killing anyone would justify any crimes committed,” he said. “I think a prison sentence would be more than adequate to fit the crime. I don’t believe in an eye-for-an-eye. Just because he killed doesn’t mean he should be killed.”

Azadeh Tabari, 28, of Brighton, also condemned capital punishment as unjust.

“Life termination in every form is wrong. As long as they can keep him in jail, then there is no harm in doing so. What shouldn’t have been done was done, and killing him after the fact is of no use,” she said.

Morgane Ontala, 19, of Brighton, said the death penalty should be avoided if possible.

“I think that it depends on each person’s point of view. In a moral way, I think they should go through with it,” she said. “But if there’s a way to avoid the death penalty, all efforts should go towards doing that instead.”