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Boston Marathon Bomber Charged With Using 'Weapon of Mass Destruction'
New submitter bunkymag writes "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has now been indicted on over 30 charges relating to his part in the Boston Marathon bombing. Of particular note however is a charge of using a 'Weapon of Mass Destruction.' It's a bit out of line with the commonly-held perception of the term, most notably used in justifying the invasion of Iraq. However, U.S. criminal law defines a 'weapon of mass destruction' much more broadly, including virtually any explosive device: bombs, grenades, rockets, missiles, mines, etc. The question arises: is it wise for Tsarnaev to face such a politically-loaded charge? From an outsider perspective, it would seem easy enough to leverage any number of domestic anti-terror laws to achieve anything up to and including the death penalty if required. Why, then, muddy the waters with this new WMD claim, when the price could be giving further ammunition to groups outside of America that already clearly feel the rules are set up to indict them on false pretenses, and explicitly use this sense of outrage to attract new terrorist recruits?"
They could charge him with a felony parking violation. What difference does it make? Not that I'm sympathetic to the bomber. Just sayin'.
Should it not be weapons of Mass. destruction?
Or perhaps just weapons of MA destruction?
By this new definition of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", Saddam did have WMD's and they were in Iraq.
sudo make me a sandwich
So according to the government's own definition the U.S. military not only owns, but uses weapons of mass destruction, probably on a daily basis? I thought they raided Iraq, because the just owned such weapons. This definition is ridiculous!
If this bomb was a weapon of mass destruction then it turns out Bush was right! Iraq totally had WMDs. See, the whole war on terror is justified.
So there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after all!
If you're going to just make up definitions to make things sound worse, why not call him a pedo as well and charge him for that too?
Seriously, the guy's a murderer plain and simple and deserves to be locked up for the rest of his life. But a conventional bomb simply is not a weapon of mass destruction unless you want the term to have no meaning.
Nukes are WMDs. Chemical weapons fit the bill, as do biological ones. Possibly a really huge conventional bomb could reach that (e.g. a daisycutter in a populate d area), but a bomb set off in a crowd which kills 5 people? That's not even remotely a WMD.
The stupidity of this burns, frankly.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I would hardly count 3 dead as a weapon of mass destruction. All the buildings are still there as well.
as long as he is left lifeless in the end.
Easy there, ganjadude. Personally, I'd like to see the guy rot in a cell.
Keeping people alive to make them think about what they've done seems far more just to me than letting them escape their guilty conscience.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
By this new definition of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", Saddam did have WMD's and they were in Iraq.
I didn't though of that. Maybe the government is pulling a "Romney" in trying to find a casus belli for that war fiasco retroactively :P
Killing 3 people and maiming 234 using explosives and shrapnel counts as mass destruction in my book. Thanks for asking, though.
Then charge him with three counts of murder and 234 counts of attempted murder. Does it really matter that this was done with explosives? Would you feel better if he stabbed 237 people to the same effect?
Using a weapon of mass destruction is a pretty serious violation of the law of conservation of mass. Where did he get the anti-matter?
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I suspect this is another instance where the Federal prosecutors are thinking of primarily domestic considerations. If they bring the biggest and most impressive-sounding charges they can, then all the surveillance powers and generally noxious government behavior seem more justified. It pays to keep the public scared: it keeps the "homeland security" budget super-sized and it makes the Federal prosecutors look and feel bigger than they are. Both of those outcomes are good for their careers.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
wonder if the Colorado gun man gets charged as such too.
"killing 12 people and injuring 58 others"
For purposes of criminal law, the bomb was legally a weapon of mass destruction. The effect of the bomb qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction for purposes of discussion.
Boston Marathon bombing 3 dead, 254 wounded. Fifteen victims suffered amputations, two of which had double amputations.
There are two contexts in which "Weapon of Mass Destruction" is used. In military usage it refers to nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Criminal code usage is a superset of military definition, plus "destructive devices." Basically, explosive or incendiary devices with more than 1/4 oz payload. The charges are in-line with current criminal law practice.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Try the guy on 3 counts of murder, a bazillion of attempted murder, and throw in a few parking tickets and douchbag haircut crimes as well. The legal system already accounts for people like this, no need to layer on another helping of hysteria and chest-beating.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Sure, but current criminal law practice is to make everything sound rather grandiose. When most people think of WMDs they think of weapons that can cause real mass destruction. Things that kill thousands or millions.
...its all fun and games until you buy some fireworks and then get arrested and charged with possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Do you really think they threw that charge in to be cute?
They are trying to set a precedent, and by the looks of it they will because as you see from the comments here, this guy is automatically guilty of anything they charge him with in the publics eye.
"His name was James Damore."
"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has now been indicted on over 30 charges relating to his part in the Boston Marathon bombing. Of particular note however is a charge of using a 'Weapon of Mass Destruction.' It's a bit out of line with the commonly-held perception of the term, most notably used in justifying the invasion of Iraq. However, U.S. criminal law defines a 'weapon of mass destruction' much more broadly, including virtually any explosive device: bombs, grenades, rockets, missiles, mines, etc. The question arises: is it wise for Tsarnaev to face such a politically-loaded charge? From an outsider perspective, it would seem easy enough to leverage any number of domestic anti-terror laws to achieve anything up to and including the death penalty if required. Why, then, muddy the waters with this new WMD claim, when the price could be giving further ammunition to groups outside of America that already clearly feel the rules are set up to indict them on false pretenses, and explicitly use this sense of outrage to attract new terrorist recruits?"
Absolutely not. Tsarnaev is a terrorist and a murderer. As such, he should be indicted logically, using the law logically, and with all the abundance of evidence arrayed against him.
By trumpeting the charges and re-defining the semantics behind the term WMD, we turn a legitimate case into a political circus. Moreover, when we cheapen a word or term (WMD in this case), when we redefined in an ad hoc manner away from the commonly accepted semantics of it, we setup a terrible precedent, one than can be legitimacy challenged by Tsarnaev's attorney.
There is no sane way in which we can interpret a pipebomb or a pressure cooker bomb as a weapon of mass destruction. No common person exercising common sense and common knowledge can accept such a definition. Any such redefinition is no longer objective. It is biased and subjective, one that can run into trouble with a judge in a court of law (or a jury).
So why risk it? I mean, there are many reasons, political and circus-like reasons, yes, but no valid, legal or ethical reasons.
Tsarnaev is guilty of terrorism. It is guilty of murder. It is guilty of harming other people and property. It is guilty of robbery. It is guilty of kidnapping. It is guilty of manufacturing and deploying destructive devises (of which WMDs are just a very small subset.) One could argue that he is guilty of organized crime (with the objective of committing acts of terrorism.)
There is plenty of objective evidence with which to finding him guilty of all of that in state and federal courts.
He is not guilty of using a WMD. This is a slippery slope for something that is completely unnecessary. If we use that logic, does a mass shooting turns a rifle into a WMD? Does crashing a car to run into a store turns it into a WMD? As horrible as these things might be, there are laws of sufficient strength and logical soundness to prosecute such acts.
This move does not make us safer. In fact, it might have the opposite effect since it trivializes the meaning behind "WMD", which could make it more difficult to prosecute an actual WMD charge.
Authorities, please: Let us not make one more mockery out of legal institutions and charge this criminal appropriately. Do not turn our courts for such an important case into a political circus, please.
The Times Square (attempted) bomb was termed a "weapon of mass destruction" in the charges that were filed. I do think "WMD" is over-kill for those cases.
there is a difference between federal law and state law. Murder is not generally considered a federal offense (in one of the civil rights murders it was federal only because it occurred on federal land http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ex-federal-prosecutor-who-led-historic-case-dies)
That is why people entering the country have to say they will not commit a crime while they are here. Any crime they commit is probably only a state issue, but lying on your federal entry form ...
Does it really matter that this was done with explosives? Would you feel better if he stabbed 237 people to the same effect?
Gloria: "Do you know that sixty percent of all deaths in America are caused by guns?"
Archie: "Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed out of windows?"
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Cheaper than an execution. Look up the real numbers and be surprised.
Also morally superior. I see no reason to make us all murderers.
perhaps that explains why they are trying him in criminal court rather than military court?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Keeping them alive makes the rest of us pay for it...
That's just stupid.
You want him kept alive forever? YOU pay for it... I'd rather pay $.005 for a bullet and be done with it.
You are an idiot.
Please stop talking until you learn something about the topic.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If we call a pressure-cooker bomb a "weapon on mass destruction", what do we call a nuke? WMD is a term that has long had a fairly well defined meaning: nukes, chemical weapons, bio-weapons. If we make the term mean something else, then we just need a new term. If we are going to make up a new term, the why not use it for small bombs?
Words matter! The debate over WMDs in Iraq will be more confusing in future discussions if we change the meaning of the word. It may seem like a good idea to the US to use words like that for emphasis, but what do we do when we are accused of using WMDs against civilian populations in the form of drone-strikes? Of is Israel is accused of using WMDs against Palestinians and demands are made that the US uphold its treaties?
The boston bomber should be accused of using an explosive device to commit mass murder and mayhem. A conviction on that should put him away for the rest of his life, or execute him.
as explained before, military definition for WMD is not the same as criminal code definition. By the criminal code definition, he did in fact use a WMD, by military standards he did not. That could explain why he is having a criminal trial rather than a military trial.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Cool, so when does the President go on trial for authorizing the murder of civilians using WMDs?
Before you respond with any of that , "at war blah blah blah" nonsense, keep in mind that Congress has not declared war on Pakistan.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
That is probably the singly most morally repugnant thing I will read all day. As far as I can tell you appear to be no better than this bomber.
They do it because they want to force a plea deal.
The only reason they include it is for the so-called trial penalty. It is realistic enough that a judge won't throw it out, but it is so extreme that if the guy chooses to attempt a trial the risk is greater. It will be so extreme that he won't want that risk, so he'll choose the plea bargain instead of rolling the dice at a trial.
This is the biggest current flaw in the US legal system. Prosecutors have no stake in the game, no disincentive from adding trumped-up and unrealistic charges. It is something that other nations managed to get right with prosecutors needing to pay for accusations that don't result in convictions. If prosecutors needed to pay some significant penalty money to compensate the accused for every charge that is dismissed, the problem would quickly dry up.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
If you look at the laws themselves it's a bit weird; 18 USC sec. 2332a seems to introduce the term "weapons of mass destruction" for the sole purpose of re-naming a definition provided in 18 USC sec. 921 called "destructive device," which dates to 1934 at the latest. I'm not savvy enough to figure out when the "WMD" terminology was introduced, but it's at least older than 1996 and seems to serve no purpose other than sounding grandiose.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Thanks for saving us some time on this one. Want to cause mass hysteria? Use a gun - you'll kill more people than you would with a bomb, and you'll face lesser charges when you're caught!
+1 Disagree
The simple fact is, and there were people who brought this up during the Bush administration, which is why this is no surprize at all to me now, the law defines just about any explosive intended to harm people as a weapon of mass destruction. This is not new at all. Even while Bush was raving about WMDs in Iraq, the whole time, even a hand grenade was classified as a WMD.
The shocking thing, to my mind is that Bush never used this to his advantage. This dedinition could have easily been used to manufacture some news stories which would lose the details int he shuffle. "We found WMDs!"
What bothers me is that, this happened in MA, and MA specifically doesn't have the death penalty. The AG here should be bending over backwards to make sure he is charged HERE and fight federal attempts on general princible. Banning the death penalty here was done for good reason and he should be working to respect that as an agent of state law not using the federal loophole to allow him to, without any fight, end up in a court that would kill him.
In any case, this is no politically charged charge, its exactly the defined crime under federal law. Its just not clear to me why the federal government should get involved when this seems like one the state can handle.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Yeah, it sounds like ganjadude needs to get back on the ganja...
This makes every explosive the US has ever dropped a "weapon of mass destruction" and means we maintain "weapon of mass destruction fields" between North and South Korea. I say they call it what it is: an explosive device, three murders, several attempted murders, criminal chaos/criminal mischief, assaults with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to murder, etc. There's no reason to go from calling just nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons WMD to making every air force pilot in the world a war criminal just to bust this guy.
He should just be charged with what he did:
Killing x people, Wounding y people,
Exploding a bomb with intent to endanger life,
Conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.
Sll the rest is bollocks, MFG, omb
He's going to criminal court because he's an American who did a crime on American soil. As much as I think the whole "mass destruction" charge is hysteria-induced bullshit, I'm very thankful he's not being declared an "enemy combatant" to be shipped off to a military prison.
+1 Disagree
Oh, but they'll call it a "mass shooting" or describe it as "mass casualties".
Of course they'll describe the pistol magazines as "high capacity" even though they are standard capacity for the firearm. The idea is to spin the event or item to make it sound more scary than it is.
"mass shooting" > "shooting"
"mass casualties" > "casualties"
"high capacity magazine" > "magazine"
"weapon of mass destruction" > "bomb"
"Lame" - Galaxar
WMD in a military context is different than WMD in a civilian criminal law context. There is nothing unusual about that. This is much like there being different standards of treatment under the law of war versus criminal law. The confusion on this point has led to much heated discussion and misunderstanding.
This video is a representation of the US federal government shooting down Americans en mass without arrest, charge, trial, or conviction. The use of civilian criminal law to address this situation is problematic to say the least. Under military law, it is both legal and completely justified.
The rules are different depending on the situation: is it war, or law enforcement? Sometimes it is clearly law enforcement and criminal law. Sometimes it is clearly war and the law of war. There are some situations, mainly low level conflicts, that could be covered under either, although there can be significant trade-offs when using one versus the other. The war against al Qaida is effectively split. Outside the US it is generally being treated as law of war, inside as criminal law.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Something tells me the US Military is well aware of what they drop on people and what they were accusing Saddam Hussein of possessing. It wasn't merely that he was alleged to have them, but that he was alleged to have them in contravention of some treaty, wasn't it? The issue wasn't about the items, but about the treaty or punishment or whatever not being followed.
You are not seeking justice, only vengeance.
As long as he gets a fair trial (and by fair I mean a death sentence)
I for one am elated that you are not allowed to define what is meant by a "fair trial."
+1 Disagree
If you look at the laws themselves it's a bit weird; 18 USC sec. 2332a seems to introduce the term "weapons of mass destruction" for the sole purpose of re-naming a definition provided in 18 USC sec. 921 called "destructive device," which dates to 1934 at the latest. I'm not savvy enough to figure out when the "WMD" terminology was introduced, but it's at least older than 1996 and seems to serve no purpose other than sounding grandiose.
This is why laws should not be permitted to be introduced except that first one cubic inch of flesh and blood should be removed from the legislator's body.
Dead is dead. Murder is murder. If a person deliberately murders someone, we don't need 137 different types of murder law to charge the offender on, just one. Adding more anti-murder laws is grandiose at best and at worst may end up in creating legal loopholes that a broader definition would not.
The death penalty is anything but cheap, if you factor in the huge fixed costs of actually having one, not to mention endless chains of appeals. Ditto, supermax.
Besides, death is exactly what these asshats want. Locking scum up, like this Chechan piece of shit, in supermax without even means to kill himself, is an appropriate punishment.
No. No. Nope. Not the "they hate us for our freedom!" thing again.
They mostly began hating us for redrawing the boundaries of their countries after WWI, and more recently for occupying their countries with standing armies. Let's try to keep an eye on actual cause and effect.
The issue wasn't about the items, but about the treaty or punishment or whatever not being followed.
My view on the reasons for the 2nd Iraq war.
1. Bush wanting to finish what his father started.
2. Saddam was *constantly* violating the terms of the cease fire. Violating no-fly zones, hiding things, moving troops where he wasn't supposed to, etc... I deployed to Kuwait during that period, we were dropping bombs constantly to enforce the rules.
3. An honest desire to 'clean up' the mess of the past; not create another NK situation. The idea(that didn't pan out nearly as well as hoped) was to lance the problem so we don't need military bases sitting around the area 50 years later.
4. Possible WMDs. And yes, I count WMD as 'Nuclear, biological, Chemical'. Or if you insist on the newer termology: "Chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear". On the world stage, countries don't typically worry about other countries having conventional explosives - have all the 500-2000 pound bombs, mortar and artillery shells, and everything else you want. They worry about WMD. A conventional bomb built into a pressure cooker shouldn't be considered a WMD because it dilutes the term.
I don't read AC A human right
It shows.
I think they should refer to the bombs used in this case Weapons of Mass Hysteria. They cause more hysteria than actual destruction. McVeigh's fertilizer bomb was a better candidate for destruction.
They are not the same, that is the of talk that leads to this sort of behavior.
Of course not.
I believe the bomber thought something similar. That his crime was less so than what others had done.
Ganjadude's suggestion is in someways worse in that he wants to make us all share in his murder.
It definitely doesn't count, in my book. You post-cold-war kids are so cute. Did you know the band Megadeth got their name from something that was believed to be reasonably likely could happen? 237 casualties isn't even a blip on the WMD scale. WMDs are for serious scale murder.
Exaggeration sounds like good idea when you're going after a specific bad guy, but it reminds me of how "registered sex offender" used to mean "rapist" and now, for all you know, it can mean some kid who sext-messaged his girlfriend or maybe even got drunk and peed on a parking meter.
Overbroad terminology abuse will remove stigma. Now the next time someone wants to start a hideously expensive war over alleged WMDs, the public will say "why should I care if Saddam II has a hand grenade?"
Hmm... now that I think of it, this could save us a shitload of money. Ok, you've convinced m-- wait, what if Saddam II actually has (oldschool definition) WMDs? Are we going to need a new term that means the same as WMD used to mean, like "WMDs, no I mean for real, 'Threads' and 'The Day After' style, dude!"?
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No, you simply can't know in advance if a case is clear cut. You don't want to take the chance that the guy who everybody "knows" did it is innocent. Let some bad guys get away with it if that's what it takes, but take great care that you don't put an innocent guy away (or worse- to death).
I won't say you're not entitled to your opinion on this matter, but lucky for our society, the courts agree with me. Also, lucky for you if you're ever wrongfully accused of a crime.
+1 Disagree
Actually the real reason so few died is because there were dozens of medics standing by at the end of the race course anyways.
They were doing medical triage on site 30 seconds after the explosions. That is why only three died. It is also why only those in desperate need were being rushed to the hospital.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Best. New. Political. System. EVAR!!!!!
Seems to be how most companies are run, too.
Why would you want to strike any kind of a deal with this dirtbag!? The guy has done a terrible deed, admitted so to multiple witnesses, wrote a confession note. Plus they have a boatload of forensic evidence.
Amen. Taking somebody's life judicially is very, very serious business, and I feel, appropriate for the absolute worst cases, e.g. genocide and waging war against your own country (and I don't mean this Mickey Mouse shit, where a couple of disaffected and misguided young men let off pipe bombs which kill a few passers-by, I'm speaking serious existential threats to our way of life and moral order).
OTOH, when you open a newspaper here, and read about the huge number of people being put to death for serious, albeit not devastatingly terrible crimes, one has to wonder if it's always the case that punishment genuinely fits the crime. And interestingly in states where conservative moral values hold sway, and with lots of people of the ostensibly "pro life" POV, where a woman taking RU486 is a terrible thing, but in the same breath, are sending hordes of poor urban blacks to death row at great expense, presumably 'for the lulz'. Texas is about to rack up 500 executions since 1974. To my untrained ear, that sounds like a lot.
Imposing the death penalty isn't cheap nor should it be cheap.
The burden of proof for capital cases also needs to be extremely high. Miscarriages of justice do happen, and it's very hard to apologise and pay compensation to somebody who's dead...
Yes. "Weapon of mass destruction" has an understood meaning. To me its like calling a bus an aircraft. True it does travel though the air, but not in the manner we associate with the term "aircraft".
A pipe bomb does not cause "mass destruction", so using the word "mass destruction" is confusing.
If we call a pipe bomb a "weapon of mass destruction", what term would we use for a nuke that killed 100,000 people?
That's class A hypocrisy, then, because the entire state leans so far left that a gentle breeze could knock it into Karl Marx's lap.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
There are only a handful of things that will get you sentenced to death under federal law. Yes, he could be charged with first degree murder, but that wasn't done on the federal level, so the jurisdiction of the commonwealth of Massachusetts would take precedence over federal law there (and there is no death penalty in MA). He can be charged FEDERALLY with nothing else that would be able to get him the death penalty. He wasn't smuggling aliens, did not destroy aircraft, did not perpetrate a drug-related drive-by shooting, didn't kill law enforcement officials, etc. Thus this is the only charge that the federal government can bring against him that could result in the death penalty. It's not about being politically charged - it's about them desiring to be able to kill him, and not having another way to go about it.
Prosecutors always overcharge the accused because 1) they can do it, and 2) it gives them leverage to get a plea bargain approved and avoid going to court and having to pay for an expensive trial. Because of the federal budget woes right now which has caused courts, the U.S. attorneys' offices (the prosecutors), and the federal public defenders' offices to lay off clerks and lawyers (but not judges) they undoubtedly would not want to go to trial given how hugely expensive it would be. But regardless of whether this guy is charged by the feds or the commonwealth of Massachusetts he at a minimum is going to spend his life in prison, probably a supermax. He could be the Unibomber's cellmate whenever the Supreme Court finally abolishes solitary confinement. Perhaps they could compare notes.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
Just like the RICO laws resulted in an ever-widening definition of "conspiracy", or corporations becoming more and more "people" over time.
Table-ized A.I.
As long as he gets a fair trial (and by fair I mean a death sentence) [...]
You'd love North Korea's justice system; it is the epitome of "fair" by your twisted standard. Fortunately, most civilized societies have not only abolished the states' power to kill their own people, they enjoy lower murder rates as well.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan