Slashdot Mirror
Verdict Reached In Boston Bombing Trial
An anonymous reader writes "A Boston jury has reached a verdict in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who admitted that he planted a bomb at the finish line of the Boston Marathon that left three dead and wounded 264 others. After deliberating for 11½ hours the jury has found Dzhokhar guilty on all 30 charges brought against him."
Most news analysts had a guilty verdict as a foregone conclusion, with the real question being whether the bomber would face the death penalty. It's strange that it took 11 and a half hours to reach the verdict.
The defense set up for an appeal to the death penalty by making repeated requests to change the venue from Boston to anyplace else. The defense's job was to try to make him out to be a poor kid manipulated by his overbearing brother. Basically, throw his brother under the bus (or as actually happened: under the stolen SUV).
Given his poor defense, I'm really not all that surprised. Though I wonder how it will flesh out in appeals if he gets the death penalty. One might argue the poor quality defense would force a retrial if they can convince an appeals court of incompetence or something like that.
What? This guy PLANTED one of the devices that killed people. I think his defense was poor because the evidence was clear that he was a willing participant in the crime.
No doubt there will be lots of appeals either way. It's the nature of the legal system in it's bend over backwards to protect the rights of criminals and assuring that their due process rights are protected. It's not evidence in the unfairness of a trial, but evidence that we are willing to expend a LOT of effort to make sure things are fair.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
throw his brother under the bus (or as actually happened: under the stolen SUV).
An SUV being driven by him non-the-less..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
"It's the nature of the legal system in it's bend over backwards to protect the rights of CITIZENS"
Good-bye
It's not evidence in the unfairness of a trial, but evidence that we are willing to expend a LOT of effort to make sure things are fair.
This would be more persuasive if not for the Alabama man released from prison after he was exonerated.
Or the ones from Ohio. Or North Carolina. Or Louisiana. Or...
My point was that people win or lose their case based on the quality of defense that's presented, not whether they're actually guilty or not. People who can afford to throw legions of lawyers at their defense can get away with murder, literally. This guy had a piss poor defense so it's no surprise he was convicted, regardless of whether he was a brainwashed pawn of his brother or a willing and eager participant. I believe firmly that it was the latter rather than the former. But a very well paid defense team would have been able to manufacture enough testimony and evidence to question his responsibility. At least throw enough BS at the jury to make them have some doubt. But that's how our "justice" system works in this country. Cheap defense = conviction. Expensive defense = good possibility of acquittal.
Agreed. It was the best possible defense, considering the moron scrawled a confessional on the boat he was hiding under. The defense's only hope is to make him out to be a brainwashed follower, with the conveniently dead older brother as some sort of Mansonesque terrorist supergenius.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
lololol
Given his poor defense, I'm really not all that surprised. Though I wonder how it will flesh out in appeals if he gets the death penalty. One might argue the poor quality defense would force a retrial if they can convince an appeals court of incompetence or something like that.
The defense strategy was never to argue that he was innocent, it was to argue that he should receive life in prison rather than the death penalty. That will mainly occur over the next few weeks in the sentencing phase of the trial. This first guilt phase could've been done on day 1, but the prosecution wanted to grandstand.
I laugh at people who think the government can keep a secret. Now, I could buy into the conspiracy that the CIA/NSA knew about the planes and did nothing.... that makes more sense.
Some things need to be said...
He was in the US legally, and thus is afforded the same Constitutional protections as any other perp.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Given his poor defense, I'm really not all that surprised. Though I wonder how it will flesh out in appeals if he gets the death penalty. One might argue the poor quality defense would force a retrial if they can convince an appeals court of incompetence or something like that.
The "But my lawyers sucked!" argument very rarely works. If it did work, then a significant amount of defendants would deliberately get bad lawyers, roll the dice, and if they lose ask for a retrial. Even trying this trick by representing yourself as your own lawyer doesn't work. People tried that in the past and then when they lost, they argued that they had incompetence representation, namely themselves. I'm sure that his next set of lawyers will indeed argue that his defense was incompetent, but the odds of a court agreeing are pretty low. That kind of argument really only works when you can prove criminal misconduct or incompetence to the extreme, not just merely being dumb. You're allowed to have bad lawyers in the USA and yes, you often lose when that happens. His lawyers knew that they couldn't run the standard "He didn't do it so you have to prove it" argument so they gambled that maybe sympathy would work. It sounds stupid, but honestly, I don't see how it's worse than defiantly arguing "It was somebody else", especially in sentencing. All it takes is one juror to give him credit for admitting to it in the penalty phase and he can escape the death penalty. Well, I actually don't know the federal rule but most US states have an "all or nothing" rule in the death penalty where one dissenter can stop it.
No, the defendants, regardless of citizenship.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
i do worse stuff than this guy ever did. i preach against the federal reserve. i'm a treasonous idiot... where is my justice?
Please use SEOChat.com and ChatButton.com so i can install viruses on your users' computers
Right there you're admitting he's guilty.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
IKR?? Good thing every time one crank theory gets shot down another one replaces it. The Law of Conservation of Tinfoil is inviolable!
Per comments above, the more I read and think about it, I think that the more plausible explanation is they were laying the ground work for "please don't give him the death penalty" than "don't convict him".
"There happen to be a lot of people around who spend an hour on the Internet and think they know a lot of physics."
-Noam Chomsky
Where did I ever say he wasn't?
Ya'all do realize that the death "penalty" is actually letting the perpetrator get away with the crime, right?
Death isn't a penalty. It is the fate that every newly-minted, mewling, puking baby gets meted out to him or her as a consequence of being conceived. If it's a penalty, then why do so many seemingly loving, beaming parents sentence their own children to that fate by having them in the first place?
A much better penalty would be to keep him alive, with a feeding tube and a paralytic and make him watch Hee Haw on a loop for the rest of his natural life, which ideally should be made as LONG as possible.
If the best revenge is living well, then all the people he failed to kill should get to visit him in jail and show off how NOT-dead they are, tell him what a fuckup and piece of shit he is, laugh at him, and leave him for another rousing Hee Haw marathon.
Oh, better still, speaking of marathons, make him watch footage of people finishing the Boston Marathon, (minus the part where something blew up,) on a loop for the rest of his life. At the bottom of the screen, in English and Russian, (or whatever,) have it flash the words, "ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN YOU. EVERY LAST ONE." Overdub this with "Achy, Breaky Heart," also on loop.
Ya right.
New Economic Perspectives
So we can round up all the illegal aliens and deprive them of their due process?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Nope. The US would never have put Osama bin Laden on trial: It would have been a spectacular media circus, with every Muslim in the world cheering for the underdog Martyr.
I was much more expedient to shoot him, and toss him in the drink.
Hey, look at what Rolling Stone did with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: They turned him into an idol for teenage girls. Imagine what they would have done with Osama bin Laden . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Even if He was naturalized two years before the bombings, he should lose that privilege. How much will it cost to keep him on death row?
Better yet, leave him in a locked room with the victim's families for a couple of hours.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
How jaded... I feel sorry for you.
When you are in criminal court, the rules are skewed to favor the defendant. It starts with innocent until proven guilty and keeps going from there. What you see on TV is not how it really works. Criminal court is almost a ritual like proceeding where the defense gets the benefit of EVERY doubt.
Can a marginal case be "purchased" by spending lots of money? Sure, you might be able to get an otherwise guilty defendant off if you spend enough, but the chances of that are pretty slim if the evidence is good like it was in this case. And, if you think about it, really doesn't make THIS trial unfair, it makes the one where all the money got spent unfair.
But, I beg you to not confuse CRIMINAL proceedings with CIVIL proceedings. Civil court is an entirely different set of rules which are much more susceptible to being influenced by money. The two are not the same and the court proceedings are a lot different as is the level of proof required to "win" your case.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
but it is cheaper to do it the Chinese way compare to keeping him alive.
New Economic Perspectives
ACCUSED would be better than "citizens". It can still be profoundly frustrating for victim's and their families.
Ya'all do realize that the death "penalty" is actually letting the perpetrator get away with the crime, right?
Death isn't a penalty. It is the fate that every newly-minted, mewling, puking baby gets meted out to him or her as a consequence of being conceived. If it's a penalty, then why do so many seemingly loving, beaming parents sentence their own children to that fate by having them in the first place?
The penalty isn't the death, it's the forfeiture of what was going to be the rest of your life. Even in prison you would experience some moments of levity, joy, and peace, as well as many other experiences. The punishment is denying you these experiences, determining your actions have made you unfit not just for society(prison=removal from society), but of life itself. Life is the last thing a person has, the only thing that once gone can never be gotten back, and taking it away early is the ultimate punishment.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"Jurors saw graphic scenes of a street awash in blood and severed limbs and the dazed, traumatized expressions on people's faces. They heard screams and moans. It looked like a war zone, several witnesses said."
Maybe if the same kinds of evidence were presented in a public court about our invasion, bombing, and occupation of other countries, we would have a more honest discussion about the true costs of war and whether the ends justify the means.
Go ahead and give him a life sentence and get this over with. He'll die soon enough in prison, especially of the guards "accidentally" happen to be looking the other way. He's pretty recognizable, and he definitely won't be the most popular position no matter where he is sent to.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You have it all wrong.
Brought to trial in New York. Found innocent due to a technicality, then the judge releases the bailiffs and shows him the front door -- where New York awaits.
Which we do. You can't deport me to any country without a trial and some sort of banishment law.
A foreign element on American soil illegally committing acts of terror? I'm sure there is some legal way to wrangle around constitutional rights. I can't say for sure but it sounds probable especially given the mounds of new laws passed in the last 14 years that are in place To Keep You Safe(tm).
No because that would be racial profiling and it's wrong.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
We could kick them out of the country if we wanted.
two planes, three towers
Have you ever actually been in a criminal court? Defending yourself against even an offense as trivial as a speeding ticket is enough to make it blatantly obvious how defendants get railroaded in this country.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Not after he has already been convicted. "Criminal" is the right term for the appeals process that determines if there was unfairness in the trial here.
Brainwashed follower was about the only defense he had after his actions.
I'm not entirely sure that he has any good choices now. Being executed might be just as good as the million years he's going to be in prison. I suppose I wouldn't pick execution, but holy shit, what a shitty life he has in front of him now, either way.
Good. He earned his shitty future. I'm just sorry that incarcerating him will have almost no effect on the people who will be doing the same sort of thing in the future. People as stupid as he is don't let "consequences" get in their way when they really want to fuck other people over.
That would be interesting if it actually happened. But since it didn't, what are you talking about?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yes, that does happen.
Check out the Camp in Dilley Texas.
Why was is better than avoiding a trial by pleading guilty? IANAL obviously.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
A country's legal system doesn't have to lower itself to the level of the criminals it is punishing.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Just wondering why you say he had a poor defense? The only think that might be questioned is if he gets the death penalty or not.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Cheap defense = conviction. Expensive defense = good possibility of acquittal.
If money could get you out of jail, then Madoff would not be in jail right now. And no poor person would ever be acquitted.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
http://i62.tinypic.com/4r2hi0....
Most trials are biased against the defendant because most defendants that go to trial are, in fact, guilty. Most police and prosecutors do try to catch the actual perpetrators of crimes-- and don't typically proceed to trial unless the evidence supports at least a reasonable chance of getting a guilty verdict.
I recall sitting through a session of traffic court when I was babysitting a new A/V recording system. It was enlightening how many people defended themselves from speeding tickets with what pretty much consisted of "Well, yes, but..." when the question of whether they were actually speeding was asked. A vanishingly small number (maybe it was one or two throughout the entire session) were able to articulate a cogent argument that they weren't, in fact, speeding. Most just didn't want to face the consequences of their own actions. Much like the majority of defendants.
The defense, in their opening statement, admitted the defendant committed the crime. A trial to determine his guilt was merely a formality leading up to the penalty phase. Everybody, including the prosecution, defense (and presumably the defendant), and the judge all understood this. But it must be a slow news day, as every media outlet is making this out to be a big deal.
You can't compare a civil offense like a speeding ticket to a criminal trial. The standards of proof are completely different.
In the case of a civil offense, the standard is preponderance of evidence. A cops word is pretty much good enough for that.
In a criminal trial the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. That means no reasonable person can have a reasonable doubt that you did it. HUGE difference.
http://i62.tinypic.com/4r2hi0....
or mayhaps
http://tinypic.com/r/4r2hi0/8
Exactly. People miss the point of this all the time. The rights you see granted to criminals aren't there for the benefit of the criminals. They're for YOUR benefit in the event you are brought up on charges but are actually innocent. Which actually happens sometimes.
YOU have the right of appeal in case you, innocent of any crime, are charged and convicted because someone screwed up. It's a consequence, not the intent, that the legitimately guilty also have that right. We can't take it from them without taking it from you because we don't know which is which. If we did have infallible knowledge of who is guilty and who is innocent, we wouldn't need to bother with trials.
You might want to read up on Judy Clark, his attorney. She isn't some schmuck - indeed, she has represented some of the highest profile death penalty eligible cases in the country over the past twenty years.
If the evidence is overwhelming, as it was in this case, it is NOT a good defense to "throw BS" at the jury - the prosecution will simply tear up your defense and leave the jury with a very bad impression of your client.
The "bad impression" part is important when the penalty phase, decided by the same jury, comes up. Ms. Clark was preparing for the penalty phase, hoping to make the jury sympathetic to her client so they would just sentence him to life in prison rather than the death penalty. She, quite correctly, understood a conviction was impossible to avoid on most charges because the evidence shows her client is guilty beyond all rational doubt -- well beyond the "reasonable doubt" standard. Ms. Clark, effectively, used the guilt/innocence phase of the trial to start her argument in the penalty phase.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
It's "nonetheless", you fucking American idiot...
Fuck off Grammar-Nazi!
This is why women don't like you and call the police when you show up instead of dating you, Because you are an asshole!
That's only fair considering everything else is running against the defendant in a criminal case. The general attorney has the whole of police and by some margin more funds than the average person on his side to find enough for a conviction.
Add a not-too-fond-of-defending-you court-appointed lawyer and I guess it doesn't look so favorable for the defendant anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If h'es not sentenced to death, he'll be sent to the Supermax facility in Florence, CO, for the rest of his life. But he'll probably be put to death, as he should be.
Sometimes the job of defense isn't to prove innocence, but insure they are having a fair trial.
The goal of the defence for this case, wasn't for this part of the trial, but the next one for sensenticing. If he can get life in prison vs the death penalty, then the defence was successful,
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm not sure why he tried to put up a defense at all. The case against him was overwhelming. There's nothing the defense could do to keep him from getting convicted. He should have exchanged a guilty plea for taking the death penalty off the table and saved the expense of a trial.
Would it not make more sense to just exchange a guilty plea for taking the death penalty off the table?
you know.. the pictures of the guys who this kid was with that dozens of people caught on camera and a guy carrying the backpack that matched the one that exploded. who was photo'd after the explosion hiding in the lee of a building - sans backpack.
the story the media tried to bury by blaming the internet for attacking this innocent security contractor.
the lies about the brother being run over when he was reported as stabbed in a media interview by one of the investigators and the surprise on the faces of the other security officials standing behind the investigator when he said this. The picture of the older brother in handcuffs that was leaked onto the internet. The killing of another person associated with the older brother.
The investigator falling out of a helicopter during a training accident shortly after.
but, it might just all be coincidence, misinformation and lies. who knows.
Most trials are biased against the defendant because most defendants that go to trial are, in fact, guilty. Most police and prosecutors do try to catch the actual perpetrators of crimes-- and don't typically proceed to trial unless the evidence supports at least a reasonable chance of getting a guilty verdict.
Tell that to the guy who just got released from death row 10 YEARS after the evidence came forth that he was innocent.
I question why she went to trial in the first place and why she didn't just have him plead guilty in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table.
I suppose she has to do what her client tells her to do though. I suspect that's why they went through the hassle of a trial they knew they couldn't win.
It would be cheaper to just shoot them.
That's because almost everyone in court for speeding is guilty and hoping for a reduced sentence or guilty and an idiot.
In Hasson, the Supreme Court affirmed an order denying a new trial even after finding the defendant presented credible evidence several jurors had been inattentive, i.e., reading a book or working crossword puzzles, during portions of the trial. The majority opinion noted that, due to "the soporific effect of many trials when viewed from a layman's perspective," courts "uniformly decline to order a new trial in the absence of convincing proof that the jurors were actually asleep during material portions of the trial. [Citations.]" (Hasson v. Ford Motor Co., supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 411.) In another case, the appellate court noted, "` he fact that a juror falls asleep during the trial is not ground for disturbing the verdict if it does not appear that his sleep was for such a length of time or at such a stage of the trial as to affect his ability fairly to consider the case.' [Citation.]" Callegari v. Maurer (1935) 4 Cal.App.2d 178, 184.)
And there are cases of defense lawyers and even judges snoring away, and still not grounds for appeal.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The defense set up for an appeal to the death penalty by making repeated requests to change the venue from Boston to anyplace else. The defense's job was to try to make him out to be a poor kid manipulated by his overbearing brother. Basically, throw his brother under the bus (or as actually happened: under the stolen SUV).
Let's see...
Older brother - "Here's a bomb I made. Go plant it where it will kill and maim dozens."
Dzhokhar - "OK."
Defense Attorney - "My client didn't actually make the bomb that killed and maimed all those people, therefore, he's innocent.
Me - "Fucking die, Dzhokhar. Enjoy your virgins."
Won't that make him a martyr?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Given his poor defense, I'm really not all that surprised.
then why that statement? You obviously have some doubt as to his guilt or you wouldn't say such an inflammatory statement. I have no doubt and all Ive seen was what was presented on CNN for better then a month. There was no leather glove to cast doubt, no timetable questions, no question of the stuff he bought, no question he was the one in the boat "small wonder he didn't get killed in it"
Jack of all trades,master of none
That would depend on how you identified the people to be rounded up. Just driving down the street and selecting people on appearance, yeah that's illegal. If on the other hand you were to collect evidence that certain industries/locations were employing illegals and then raid them and check the documentation status of all the workers on site, that would likely be completely kosher. (I'm looking at you agriculture, meat processing and construction) Of course taking action against large corporations would mean a huge political outcry and a ton of lawsuits/drop in donations so it would never happen.
When you are in criminal court, the rules are skewed to favor the defendant. It starts with innocent until proven guilty and keeps going from there. What you see on TV is not how it really works. Criminal court is almost a ritual like proceeding where the defense gets the benefit of EVERY doubt.
This is by design, it's because we'd rather be afraid of criminals than the state and I agree with it completely.
ive repled to any other one of you statements i didn't think this went though sorry for any confusion i created.
He's in jail because he stole from rich people, that's not allowed.
Considered what happened to Aaron Swartz, this prosecutor should lose the case.
Huh? I mean, Swartz got fucked, no question about it, but what the hell are you talking about here?
Trials are not just to try and establish guilt. If guilt is established, they are also to decide on what to do next, notably to try and prevent the crime to be repeated, at least by the same person, and to decide some amount of reparation if any.
Most people would also talk about "finding a proportionate punishment" (or even an "exemplary" one), but that's of course a very restricted view, with many major negatives in most cases (including creating more crime, even by completely unrelated people...). This is however a major part of today trials too.
What Osama orchestrated wasn't a crime, it was an act of war, different rules apply.
Would it not make more sense to just exchange a guilty plea for taking the death penalty off the table?
Not if the prosecution has a slam-dunk case. And I don't think a prosecutor would want to be caught soft pedaling a case like this - they are going to prosecute this with utmost vigor.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
That stretch makes absolutely no sense to me.
My comment was about how little the defense team did to try and get him off. I made no presumption of his actual guilt or innocence in my opening statement. I made no implication of my assumption of his guilt or innocence. I made a comment about how little was presented in his defense, suggesting that if their intention was to get the jury to find him not guilty, they didn't do a very good job. I have no idea how you can read that and think I assume he's innocent.
Hell, I don't know why they even bothered going to trial given the overwhelming evidence of his guilt. They did a poor job of defending him because they simply didn't have anything to use for his defense. They may have been trying to set it up so that they could talk the jury into not giving him the death penalty. But I'm not sure why then they didn't just plead guilty in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. Unless, of course, the prosecution wouldn't make that deal.
good luck with your petty and useless obsession with revenge and punishment.
Every once in a while there is someone who is innocent. My elderly mother was driving the Prius through New Mexico and got a ticket for something like 93 in a 75. Turns out the cop tagged someone else with his radar and didn't feel like chasing them down so he gave the ticket to my mother. Fortunately, my father was able to get the GPS logs from the nav system showing her driving 70 through that whole stretch of road and had the lawyer get the ticket tossed.
But cases like that are rare. For the most part you're right. Most people who get speeding tickets are, in fact, guilty of speeding and trying to work the court system.
That's because almost everyone in court for speeding is guilty and hoping for a reduced sentence or guilty and an idiot.
Yup plus
- guilty, but is protesting the system by showing up. (if they are going to steal $200+ from me via a speed trap, I'm going to at least force them to lose a percentage of that to paying a judge, and police officer, etc to formally take it from me. Especially when it was a BS speed trap on a stretch of road where the flow of traffic is always higher than the posted limit.
- guilty, but hoping the police officer doesn't attend to win a default judgement. Hey, if you've got nowhere else to be that day, why not try for a free pass on a ticket.
- guilty, but the police officer screwed up the ticket. I've won on prima facie cases before. ... well not won... in actual fact the police at the very last second asked that the case be dismissed. (So they too are playing the "hope I don't show up in court to win a default judgement game"; because they knew damned well they'd have lost their case the moment I opened my mouth.
- actually not guilty; it happens. Especially with speed camera based systems, where the ticket was issued by mail.
The Madoff case is different. When rich people are the victims, they ensure (often times indirectly) that the person on trial is thrown in the slammer. In cases like that, it's money against money which tilts the scales.
And sure, poor people with a public defender sometimes get off. The rule isn't absolute. And the degree of the crime does play a factor. The more serious the charge, the less likely someone is to be an exception to the rule.
And, as my "good possibility of acquittal" implies, money doesn't always get you off but it makes it orders of magnitude more likely.
And, of course, all of this is independent of actual guilt or innocence. Many innocent people who don't get a quality defense will get convicted. Many guilty people who can afford a good lawyer will go free.
I hope you're not suggesting that the defendant was railroaded in this case. Your comment (which lacks context) appears that way.
The prosecutor might not have been willing to bargain in a high-profile case they knew they could win.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Have you ever actually been in a criminal court? Defending yourself against even an offense as trivial as a speeding ticket is enough to make it blatantly obvious how defendants get railroaded in this country.
Don't be railroaded, take a lawyer next time. Seriously, if it's your word that says you didn't and a police officer says you did who's going to win that one? Unless you say the police officer, then what's the point of law enforcement? I understand your frustration, but if you are tried for murder, there is a bit more to criminal court for you than having to pay the fine. Oh, and in case you wondered, YES I have gone to court for a traffic ticket I don't believe I deserved and lost, paid my fine and moved on. So I know what you are talking about. I just understand why it has to be that way and that my mistake was not bringing a lawyer...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
That's a fair point.
http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/04/...
I can't disagree with you there.
The prosecutor likely refused to make a deal.
If the prosecutor was absolutely sure they could get convictions on enough counts to insure that the defendant would get life w/o ever being released, they would have little motivation to make such a deal.
One reason to make a deal would be to save money on the initial trial and appeals. However, this would be balanced against arguments for seeking the death penalty. These arguments might include a higher deterrent value of a death sentence, better closure for victims and their families (esp. if some of them expressed a desire for the death sentence), and political motivations for prosecutor (or, really, their bosses) to be "tough on crime and terrorism". In the grand scheme of Federal prosecutions, the cost of the trial and appeals is loose change.
Doing it this way pretty much removes it as an issue in the next Presidential election. If the death penalty had not been sought, it could only create problems for the Democrat candidate who would have to support that decision (losing some mushy middle voters) or distance themselves from it (losing some enthusiasm from the liberal wing of the party). Easier to do it this way.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
its ok when its Americans blowing people up but how dare any one dare to do that to americans. So now we know all it takes is 2 pressure cooker bombs to bring the 'greatest nation on earth ' to its knees.
From a person who had to live under the IRA bombing campaign the citizens of Boston paid for.
It surprises me that people still comment on topics about which they are completely ignorant. You have the entire collection of human knowledge and up-to-the-second news analysis available at your fingertips. Yet you've decided to ignore all that capability and instead post a useless and completely inaccurate comment. Next time, do everyone a favor and just don't respond.
Follow the thread up. Read down. You'll see that what I said is correct.
It's the nature of the legal system in it's bend over backwards to protect the rights of criminals and assuring that their due process rights are protected.
And yet each of the multiple requests to move the trial to a less blatantly biased location were denied. The poor fellow might be guilty as hell, but the cards were still stacked against him. Personally, I'd like to see the judge disbarred and the verdict vacated. Even the appellate court told the judge to get with the program and move the trial.
Putting aside Tsarnaev's culpability, this trial was as bad as those we rail against in banana republics and oppressive regimes with high and mighty tones. It was purely a political show, and therefore, an insult to justice.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
How do you figure that?
While it is true that kerosene (aka "jet fuel") burning in open air will not get hot enough to melt steel, it will raise steel to the curie point, but that is not the case here. Remember that in order to withstand the temperature of the burning kerosene, most steels are not good enough so many turbojet and turbofan components actually utilize titanium and in some cases tungsten(!) alloys in order to resist the heat, because in a forced-air situation kerosene gets hot enough to vaporize steel.
What you have is many thousands of pounds of kerosene which in open air will soften or even melt kerosene, which dissolved or at least softened many plastics in the building (styrofoam insulation and ceiling panels, PVC insulation in cables, plastic office furniture, plastic carpets, etc.) and those plastics also ignited, not to mention cellulose-based materials (wood, paper) which burns quite hot.
Add in the fact that the towers are structures with very tall vertical shafts distributed throughout the middle portion of the towers (stairwells, elevator shafts, etc) you have created a huge convection situation, which was fueled [sic] by the raging inferno, which only served to add more oxygen to the combustion process causing the towers to form a crude jet engine - as the fire got hotter convection increased, which only added more oxygen to the combustion process. Now, remember that most airliners are mostly aluminum, commercial buildings use a mix of aluminum and steel (aluminum for non-structural studs in partitions, frames in drop ceilings, etc) so that liquified aluminum would come into contact with melting steel and form thermite, making the combustion even hotter, especially with the humongous amount of convection going on.
Ergo, it's no problem to arrive at the conclusion that yes, those planes did in fact cause those towers to implode, and probably could have been predicted beforehand. The planners of that attack were certainly sociopathic and deluded, but definitely not stupid and probably had expected the towers to come down the way they did because of the reasons I mentioned above.
I don't know why people point to kerosene burning in open, still air and say "kerosene can't melt steel" when the whole reason titanium and tungsten are used for jet engines is because kerosene when provided more oxygen absolutely will vaporize steel.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
And, as my "good possibility of acquittal" implies, money doesn't always get you off but it makes it orders of magnitude more likely.
You don't have data on this point, you're making stuff up......you're saying these things because they fit your pre-conceived ideology.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yeah, there's no evidence of people with no option but the public defender getting railroaded and no one with money for an expensive legal team ever got away with murder...
Give me a break.
Makes sense.
Given the overwhelming evidence, I doubt seriously that a venue change would have made any difference and I think the judge knew that.
Will they bring it up at appeal? Probably. Will it really make any difference in the end? I don't know. I'm not sure what threshold there is for overturning a verdict based on the venue and to what extent they have to prove that he didn't get a fair trial. Do they consider the case as a whole when making that determination? If so, I wonder if the overwhelming evidence will make the venue irrelevant. I think the venue should be irrelevant because of the overwhelming evidence but I don't know how that works in the actual courts.
obviously i have no idea how the jury will vote in terms of penalty, but as a massachusetts resident, i wonder if having the trial in boston may not have been in his favor... most people that i know around here are neutral to strongly-opposed to the death penalty, and i have the sense that that's the sentiment of most of the state. given that a conviction (or thirty) was all but certain, a jury from massachusetts might be more amenable to a life sentence than elsewhere in the country.
Death isn't a penalty. It is the fate that every newly-minted, mewling, puking baby gets meted out to him or her as a consequence of being conceived. If it's a penalty, then why do so many seemingly loving, beaming parents sentence their own children to that fate by having them in the first place?
By that logic is murder not a crime?
That's what I thought. You merely looked at few high-profile cases and decided they were representative.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The defense never tried to claim innocence. This trial was never about anything other than life in prison versus death penalty. It's a waste of taxpayer money since they certainly could have avoided trial and gotten a guilty plea with life in prison if they had taken the death penalty off the table. Plus you don't want to make martyrs - life in prison is much less glorious.
And you have reams of evidence to prove me wrong? I welcome you to present it.
Life is the last thing a person has, the only thing that once gone can never be gotten back, and taking it away early is the ultimate punishment.
Not to be too morbid, but that assumes that all possible lives are "worth living" and that death is never a preferable choice to living.
Many, many people make choices to die, whether by suicide to relieve pain or because of terminal illness or even for a cause (whether they are a "patriot" with a medal pinned to their chest or a "terrorist" depends on the perspective of those judging). Or, as the stats show, many people commit suicide while in prison as a method of escaping further punishment.
The penalty of execution is not merely the removal of life, but the removal of a CHOICE to continue life (or to end it). In fact, prisons often remove the option either way -- either they take life in execution or they try their best to prevent suicide if prisoners attempt it. (In fact, in most cases prisoners who are suicidal are required by law to be treated as requiring medical care, and prisons who fail to attempt to prevent suicide may be legally responsible if inmates die.) Either way, the choice of life will likely be taken away here.
A comment like this doesn't surprise me.
Reading comprehension on this site is at an all time low. Especially among people who post AC.
My comment was about how little the defense team did to try and get him off
There was no chance, and trying to do so would probably have gotten pushback from the court. Judges can tell when you're intentionally wasting their time, and they usually don't like it.
He was seen on camera with the backpack. He freely admitted (before the police ever caught him) to doing it.
It was absolutely obvious. The defense could try for one thing, and one thing only: keep them out of the electric chair. If the defense chose the "Oh, he didn't do it" argument, then they would lose. Worse yet, they wouldn't have the chance of making the "he was a kid manipulated into doing it by his older brother" argument to try to avoid the death penalty.
You can't do both, the latter undercuts the former.
Most trials are biased against the defendant because most defendants that go to trial are, in fact, guilty. Most police and prosecutors do try to catch the actual perpetrators of crimes-- and don't typically proceed to trial unless the evidence supports at least a reasonable chance of getting a guilty verdict.
Tell that to the guy who just got released from death row 10 YEARS after the evidence came forth that he was innocent.
Hey, it ain't perfect. There's a lot that needs fixing, a lot of room for improvement.
Your example of a wrongfully-convicted death row inmate does not invalidate the GP's assertion that MOST people convicted actually committed the crime they were being tried for.
If I were a victim of this case,I'd have preferred they did plead it out, rather than waste time and money on a trial which only delayed the resolution.
Aren't there a hundred better things to do?
No, you're wrong. Speeding is a criminal offense. It may be a misdemeanor rather than a felony (which might be what confused you), but even misdemeanors are still criminal and are still [theoretically] held to the same "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What evidence? The Republicans had no evidence other than their hatred of his religion. They hate him and want him to die which is why they picked him.
> PLANTED one of the devices
Bullshit. The Republicans that rule the shithole of Boston did not prove that, nor did they even try to prove that. They would have been laughed out of court. Instead, they talked about this guy's religion and let the racist and hateful people of Boston do the rest. You'll never be able to underestimate how stupid and racist a Republican can be. That is how they do. They live for these sort of things where they can screw random people.
That's what happens when a good amount of one burning building collapses on top of another. WTC7? That's your smoking gun?
There are a lot of idiots on the Internet who repeat Chomsky quotes without thinking them through, but I'll admit this one is pretty good.
Good idea, then people will have a chance to realize how terrible that suggestion is, and the courts in New York will be shown for the frauds they are.
It's only a lesson they could have learned 2000 years ago. But I guess it takes time to sink in.
Conspiracy Theory idiots will make conspiracy theories about anything.
Why don't you make conspiracy theories about the school system that fucked up your science education so badly?
Yeah, but the problem is with all the killer cops we have these days, chances are you'll never make it to court to defend a broken tailight ticket.
The death of Eric Garner not only didn't raise an eyebrow, you actually have people defending the cocksuckers.
Michael T. Slager didn't wake up this morning intending to shoot Mr. Scott in the back. He just did what comes naturally to a publicly funded psycho.
Michael T. Slager must be publicly executed lest open season be càlled on all fascists. I am not a fan of a ste sponsored death penalty , because the right to lifeis unalienable. So if Mrs scott happens to cut Slagers balls off with a rusty knife, she should send me a letter and I will call an ambulance for this piece of shit. Please let me hear contrary opinions from the masses who have stood idle, getting hand raped at airports. Michael T. Slager must die.
But don't you see, that's part of the problem! If you get accused of speeding, you will be punished whether you're guilty or not.
If you get merely accused, your choices are to pay, pay, pay, or pay!
The legal system doesn't really care who you pay -- the court itself, its private defense lawyer cronies, or its moonlighting-cop traffic school teacher cronies -- but the system extracts its pound of flesh regardless.
And that's not all! The less willing you are to submit to the system, the more just jumping through the procedural hoops will cost you. If you want to plead guilty, all you have to do is mail in the fine. If you want to try to get a plea bargain, you have to take off work to show up for the arraignment. And if you want to actually plead not guilty? Ha! Then you have to show up for the arraignment, show up again for the second arraignment (because 'uppity' people who want to exercise their rights have their cases upgraded from recorder's court to state court) and then show up again for the trial! (Having never actually gotten that far, I might even be underestimating.) That's at least three days of missed work -- $174 for someone making minimum wage, or a whole lot more for the typical IT-worker Slashdotter -- just to exercise your right to plead not guilty!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Oh! No, not at all. I was responding strictly to the GP's claim that [in the general case] "when you are in criminal court, the rules are skewed to favor the defendant."
In this particular case, the system actually worked.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Most trials are biased against the defendant because most defendants that go to trial are, in fact, guilty.
And that translates into presumed guilty until proven innocent, right?
Picture this. A cop gets on the stand, "He was speeding 160 in a 55" The defendant gets on the stand, "I was going 55 mph in a 55, with my cruise control set. I saw the cop on the side of the road and was confused as to why he pulled me over."
Should he get a guilty or innocent verdict? Note, there isn't a photo or video of the car speeding. Nor does the person have proof that they weren't speeding (not that there really is much that could be done).
One person's word against another's. What should the verdict be? Would it matter if the "cop" wasn't a cop, but instead was a neighbor/witness?
I've been taken to court for "speeding" when I was going 30 in a 55, with about 20 witnesses to my speed. Paid $400 to fight a $200 ticket. But I won, at the appeal.
Learn to love Alaska
In Texas, when I left (2001) speeding tickets were still criminal. I've heard they are not anymore. I've seen plenty of people convicted of the Misdemeanor Crime of speeding on nothing other than the word of the cop.
Learn to love Alaska
I've gone to court twice for speeding. Got out of both. Wasn't guilty for either (based on legal definition of "guilty").
Learn to love Alaska
guilty, but the police officer screwed up the ticket. I've won on prima facie cases before. ... well not won... in actual fact the police at the very last second asked that the case be dismissed. (So they too are playing the "hope I don't show up in court to win a default judgement game"; because they knew damned well they'd have lost their case the moment I opened my mouth.
Doesn't work. I showed up in court with ironclad proof that the ticket I was given, and the charge described in the summons was wrong. They changed the charge after I got there to one I wasn't prepared to disprove (but was no more valid). So I plead guilty. It doesn't matter if the police screw up the ticket, they can still make it stick.
- actually not guilty; it happens. Especially with speed camera based systems, where the ticket was issued by mail.
I got a ticket when I crashed a motorbike because the cop that responded thought I deserved punishment for his trouble of showing up. Speeding (30 in a 55, with lots of witnesses), and passing in a no-passing zone, because I crossed the center line when I crashed.
My crime was being a novice motorcyclist. But that's not something he can ticket for, so he flat made-up tickets unrelated to what I actually did, to make sure I got punished for bothering him on a Saturday Afternoon.
Learn to love Alaska
Exactly. People miss the point of this all the time. The rights you see granted to criminals aren't there for the benefit of the criminals. They're for YOUR benefit in the event you are brought up on charges but are actually innocent. Which actually happens sometimes.
YOU have the right of appeal in case you, innocent of any crime, are charged and convicted because someone screwed up. It's a consequence, not the intent, that the legitimately guilty also have that right. We can't take it from them without taking it from you because we don't know which is which. If we did have infallible knowledge of who is guilty and who is innocent, we wouldn't need to bother with trials.
Perhaps I am just jaded, but I don't think that the legal system would go to any great lengths to try to protect me if I was wrongly accused. Not unless I spent a boatload of money. Criminals, on the other hand, get to have all kinds of appeals. This guy, who harmed almost 300 people and killed 3 people will probably get appeal after appeal, paid for by you and me. Meanwhile, a guy rots in prison for life for shooting and killing a guy who was attempting to rob him at gunpoint. Where is the appeal after appeal for this guy who was just defending himself?
Call it anecdotal, but it happens over and over and over again. Criminals are hard to catch and convict. Far easier to catch and convict honest law-abiding citizens.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
It varies by jurisdiction (obviously), but typically speeding by itself is not criminal, but speeding that constitutes dangerous driving or endangerment or some such likely is. That means one is much easier to prove than the other.
Just hire a lawyer. Usually for about $100 they will plea you a deal that includes no conviction for your insurance to pickup. Most prosecutors in traffic court will gladly take the deal over going to trial and risk their witness not showing up and having to bother with all the stuff in front of the judge. Get the lawyer and take the deal they get, regardless if you think you did it or not, unless you have hard evidence that you didn't, like an eye witness or something. If you have independent evidence, fight it as far as you can.
But I ask you, How would you propose to make this fair but still enforce the law? Officers are afforded more credibility in their testimony than you are, so if it's only the officer and you, you loose on his/her testimony. I don't see how it can be any other way without causing chaos.
About having to pay? Gee, I'm sorry. Generally EVERY time I've been pulled and ticketed the charges where valid except once. And that conviction would have not happened had I hired a lawyer. Not that the insurance caught it because my license changed states between the ticket being issued and the actual trial (6 months later) so for me it was a wash. Once you get pulled, you are going to pay if they issue that ticket. The trick it is to not get pulled over in the first place and when you do, don't get issued the ticket if you can help it.
IMHO, we use about the best system I can imagine for this. It does have the ability to be abused by cops and folks railroaded. However, even then there ARE safeguards because if a cop has a ticket overturned, it doesn't look good on their record. So if enough people fight and win when they can, the cop will be getting into trouble with his department.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It went to trial because It wanted to waste the peoples money and cause grief for as long as possible. It used the Constitutions to Its advantage. It sucks too there are some things i think people need to be executed for, this is number 1 on my short list. I think a very clear message should be given to would be terrorist, if caught and prosecuted, death WILL be you punishment.
Jack of all trades,master of none
It's "nonetheless", you f* American idiot...
Karma can be a bad thing for folk like you...
I'll remove my hyphens next time...
But the post was about the irony of the older brother "getting thrown under the bus" during the trial when it was the younger who actually ran him over with the SUV and ended his life...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
A country's legal system doesn't have to lower itself to the level of the criminals it is punishing.
Exactly. Which is why his punishment doesn't involve the blowing of his family's legs off and the shredding of the children of his relatives by surprise when they're gathered during a public celebration in their home town.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Depends on where you live and what laws you're subject to. In some states speeding is considered a civil infraction. Here in Massachusetts a speeding ticket alone carries no risk of imprisonment, and therefore doesn't qualify for a jury trial. The only risk a speeding ticket has here is potential loss of license if you have too many in too short a period of time, or if you fail to pay the fines associated with the infraction.
There is the option to appeal the infraction to a magistrate, but there's a $25 court fee to do so. If you are unhappy with the magistrates decision you can pay an additional $50 court fee to appeal to a judge. Considering the average speeding ticket is about $100-200, and spending a day or more in court means you're spending a day out of work, most of the time it's just not worth the time and effort to try and fight a speeding ticket here.
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
Those that deny the existence of God are the mentally ill. Democracy is wrong because it implies that the people should choose a Government and not God, just as the jury deciding whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be given the death penalty is wrong when that is also God's responsibility. Be careful.
No, you're wrong. Speeding is a criminal offense.
Where do you live?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It's worth keeping in mind that the 'witness' that has to appear at court is the Traffic Cop. It isn't practical for the police to tie up a cop for a half a day in court. So often enough if you contest it you get off, because the Cop doesn't show.
the cards were still stacked against him
Yes, being seen planting a bomb on the sidewalk next to children has a way of stacking the cards against oneself.
It was purely a political show, and therefore, an insult to justice.
So you'd have preferred a scenario where the same evidence wasn't brought forth, to make the trial more challenging? Or forcing his defense attorney to hold off a while making the admission of guilt he made, to add some more temporary drama for the one or two dim-witted jurors you might be able to dig up who never watch the news?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
He stole from rich liberals. Some of the richest and most liberal.
He actually set back a number of 'liberal cause' organizations whose money he wiped out.
Sorry you are incorrect.
"Standard" speeding is (usually) an infraction.
There are 3 types of criminal cases:
Infractions
An infraction is a minor violation. Many traffic violations are infractions. The punishment for infractions is usually a fine, and if the defendant pays the fine, there is no jail time. Click for information on traffic cases.
Misdemeanors
A misdemeanor is a crime with a maximum punishment of:
o Either 6 months or 1 year in a county jail, and/or
o A $1,000 fine (for most misdemeanors).
Examples of misdemeanors are:
o Petty theft
o Vandalism
o Driving with a suspended license
o Drunk driving (also known as “DUI” or “driving under the influence”)
Felonies
A felony is the most serious kind of crime. If found guilty, the defendant can be sent to jail or prison for a year or more, or even receive the death penalty for very serious crimes. Defendants convicted of felonies are usually sent to state prison for sentences of 16 months or more.
Examples of felonies are:
o Robbery
o Murder
o Rape
o Possession of illegal drugs (called “controlled substances”) for sale
Source (http://www.courts.ca.gov/10214.htm)
> No, you're wrong. Speeding is a criminal offense. It may be a misdemeanor rather than a felony (which might be what confused you), but even ?
> misdemeanors are still criminal and are still [theoretically] held to the same "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof.
I'm assuming that they were not going to offer him a plea-deal, given how the State had a very compelling case with an orgy of evidence against him. I don't think that a guilty plea would automatically allow him to avoid a death sentence; arguably a guilty plea could have meant less time in front of a jury to make the case that he was a dumb kid manipulated into these acts by both a maniacal older brother whom he looked up to all his life, and that the community he was kept in as a minor up until only a year and change before the attack left him poorly able to make the right decision for himself.
He's gone through a trial phase, now he'll go through a penalty phase. That's almost like having two trials to make this point instead of the one (ie, the penalty phase) that he would have had before.
Assuming that federal courts with the death penalty work like the state court in my area it only takes one juror to avoid execution. If his defense team can credibly portray that his radicalization was both caused by his brother and that he truly understands now what he has done then that might be enough to keep at least one juror from voting for execution. Obviously we won't know until that phase concludes if such a strategy works.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That's why you wait a long time and have mandatory appeals at the circuit level before execution. Gives the public, even his sympathizers, time to forget, or time for it to just become a fact of life.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That would depend on how you identified the people to be rounded up. Just driving down the street and selecting people on appearance, yeah that's illegal. If on the other hand you were to collect evidence that certain industries/locations were employing illegals and then raid them and check the documentation status of all the workers on site, that would likely be completely kosher. (I'm looking at you agriculture, meat processing and construction) Of course taking action against large corporations would mean a huge political outcry and a ton of lawsuits/drop in donations so it would never happen.
And that shows you, that public-face (illegals are bad!) and private behavior (oooh, I can employ these guys as contractors for a pittance and not have to pay payroll taxes, social security taxes, or other benefits!) will usually have the private behavior win-out.
Hypocrisy in action.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Please give me an example of someone firing a gun in defense of themselves, where they didn't exceed what they have the right to do, and where they did not construct a set of circumstances to lure someone in to their death.
You have a fundamental right to self-defense. That said, you do not have the right to kill someone. You have the right to stop someone that is attempting to harm you, and sometimes stopping them means inadvertently killing them, but once the force necessary to truly stop them has been reached, then using further force could bring you up on charges.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's not about money. It's about making people feel good. They're having this trial in Massachusetts near the time of year when it happened. Sounds like an unfair trial to me.
which is exactly why it should just be banned. There really is no excuse for killing a person in your custody. Frankly, I consider it murder regardless what the law says, no better than what he did.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Have you ever actually been in a criminal court? Defending yourself against even an offense as trivial as a speeding ticket is enough to make it blatantly obvious how defendants get railroaded in this country.
I know people that have gone to court and beaten speeding tickets. In some cases it was due to the state's witness not appearing (the police officer), in others is was having better evidence.
What that tells me is that persuasive evidence has to be presented in court to obtain a conviction. It may not always work out that way, but on average that is the way to bet. And that's before you get to cases where there is an affirmative defense.
I don't think your facts showed up.
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
It happens to be *illegal* to kidnap and forcibly confine people. Since the legal system should not lower itself to the levels of criminals, it must therefore set all prisoners free!
When someone points a gun at you, they begin a chain of events which you did not ask for, and the adrenaline begins to flow, clouding judgment and causing you to defend yourself at all costs. Despite what the law says, when put in that situation, you will do what is necessary to defend yourself. Judges and jurists seem to think differently, but if they were put in the same situation, they would keep shooting until the person stopped moving or the gun ran out of bullets.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
two planes, three towers
You might try science instead of conspiracy theories about the US government.*
Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation
Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7...
*There actually was a conspiracy by the group known as al Qaida, formerly led by Osama Bin Laden. Building 7 was part of the fallout.
People aren't going to forget, because it will be a really big news story whenever the execution happens.
Being executed might be just as good as the million years he's going to be in prison.
GIven his faith, I would keep the fucker alive as long as possible, and when close to death, would put him on machinery as long as possible. Remember, executing him would be martyrdom, and since the fucks like to kill and be killed, no point in giving him what he want.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
O.C.G.A. SS. 40-6-1 (a) It is unlawful and, unless otherwise declared in this chapter with respect to particular offenses, it is a misdemeanor for any person to do any act forbidden or fail to perform any act required in this chapter.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I assume you just forgot to type the last 0, because when I got a speeding ticket (just a simple speeding ticket! Not racing, not "super speeding," not reckless driving, just plain two-points-on-your-license speeding) I called literally almost a dozen lawyers, and none of them were willing to help me for much less than $1000. Every single one of them wanted to charge more than the maximum penalty (fine + court fee + driver's safety class fee) for the offense.
It was far more cost effective to preemptively take the safety class and then negotiate with the damn prosecutor myself.
To start with, court procedure should be designed such that pleading not guilty does not cost more than pleading guilty -- at the very least, it ought to allow defendants to mail in their not guilty plea and skip the arraignment!
Second, they should abolish the concept of "plea bargaining." Either the defendant deserves the charge, in which case the prosecutor should not be reducing it, or the defendant doesn't deserve the charge, in which the prosecutor should not have levied it in the first place. Piling on bullshit extra charges in an attempt to bully or scare the defendant into pleading guilty to "something" is unethical, full stop.
The best reform would be that every offense should be tried by a jury. If there are so many people breaking the law that this is impractical, that should be your first clue that THE GODDAMN LAW ITSELF IS WRONG!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
In Georgia, even "speeding by itself" is a misdemeanor -- see O.C.G.A. SS. 40-6-1 (a)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
In Georgia, it is indeed a misdemeanor (see O.C.G.A. SS. 40-6-1 (a)).
Notwithstanding the "maximum fine" verbiage in the law I linked, by the time the court finishes tacking on the assorted fees, driver's safety class tuition, and possibly fees for probation (if you hadn't already completed that safety class before coming to court, you will be on probation until you take it), the average speeding ticket in GA (or at least, metro Atlanta) is more like $300-$500 (plus another $200 if you were doing more than 85 on a highway, or 75 on a two-lane road).
Part of the reason for that is that speeding less than about 10 MPH or so over the limit isn't really prosecuted at all. Many interstates in GA have a speed limit of 70 MPH and traffic speed regularly averages 10 MPH over that, which means going 5 MPH above the flow of traffic might result in a police officer completely ignoring you... or giving you a $500+ "super speeder" ticket. There isn't really any middle ground.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Georgia -- see O.C.G.A. SS. 40-6-1 (a)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The state wasn't going to offer a plea deal because the only thing that could have been changed was the sentence from death to life in prison without parole. I believe the prosecutors said as much. They were going for the death penalty, no exceptions.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Obama rode into office, in part, on the left-wing accusation that Bush "lied us into war" by claiming Saddam Hussein had WMDs, but now the Obama asministration has successfully prosecuted a person for using a WMD when that person blew up a pressure cooker bomb (a despicable act already covered by anti-murder and anti-bomb-building laws).
Several points are in order here:
1. WMD has traditionally been equivalent to the military designation NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) and was considered so terrible because the effects could not be accurately predicted or contained (germs, gasses, and fallout scatter across wide regions affecting civilians, "good guys" and "bad guys" and are subject to things like the wind). A "Weapon of Mass Destruction" is NOT "any weapon that kills a bunch of people" ... such a definition would render nearly every military weapon of the past two centuries a "WMD"
2. When congress creates a new category of anything and gives the executive branch extra powers or extra flexibility when dealing with that thing, you can be 100% certain that the executive branch, no matter which party is in control, will suddenly discover that EVERYTHING fits into that category - a little like a kid with a hammer deciding that the entire world is made of nails.
3. Bush actually said in his televised speech that he had been given reports that Iraq was restarting its WMD programs (this was actually true - he had been given such reports). I am not a fan of Bush and firmly believe he was very wrong to go into Iraq, but he was wrongly (and very successfully) tarred with this lie that he lied the nation into a war .... and by some of the very same political hacks who lied claiming Bush was at fault for 9/11 (the same people who would have blasted him if he had NOT gone into Iraq and then later an Iraqi WMD WAS used and it was discovered Bush had prior knowledge of the possibility) Bush was, in many ways, in a no-win position. One thing is certain though: there actually ARE many WMDs in Iraq not that President Obama has legally certified pressure cookers as WMDs.
Exactly. Which is one of the reasons why it makes more sense to not let people carry guns around in the first place. But even in the absence of the 2nd Amendment, and the fanatical political opposition, there's probably no realistic way for the US to get from one situation to the other - there's just too many guns out there.
(Compare New Zealand, where even the police don't need to carry guns while on duty, because the odds of running into an armed criminal are too low to make it worth it. Of course there are armed offenders squads to deal with the exceptions.)
Why did this trial take 2 years?? I have not seen any evidence clearly showing Tsarnaev planting a pressure cooker bomb. I have seen a half dozen or so videos of the brothers walking around with backpacks. If you pay attention to these videos you can see at least another half dozen people (men and women) with backpacks of similar size. The only video evidence that leads me to believe he may have done it is the one where the younger brother is close to the front fence and a bomb goes off to the left of him off camera... the rest of the crowd reacts and looks over to the area where the bomb went off... Tsarnaev starts getting out of the area immediately, whereas it takes other spectators a few seconds to start leaving and going to the right.... then 10 seconds later a bomb goes off in camera and the camera goes black. I just want to say I have doubts about all this. It should be well known that organizations and individuals can make a ton of money off events like this. I'm talking stock market action, I'm also talking about new surveillance deals and security apparatuses being sold to the government and private organizations. Just saying there are a lot of people that have motive to set something like this up because they and there friends will profit immensely. Tsarnaev had little motive to do something like this. The only news coverage I saw or heard all had the Tsarnaev's pegged as absolutely guilty from day one. Constant references to "this trial is already over its just a matter of the death penalty" for months. I just want to say I am very worried about how everyone in this country behaves whenever anything "terrorist" related happens. Tell me, have any of you heard Tsarnaev talk freely about what happened that day? In fact I cannot find a SINGLE VIDEO of Tsarnaev saying ANYTHING about all of this. Maybe someone can post some links. If not can any of you explain how what happened here is any different from some of the really awful oppressive countries and governments that you learned about in school during the world wars... russian gulags... siberia never to be heard from again? etc. Look, most likely the Tsarnaevs did do it... but it seems HIGHLY unlikely that there we have brought all parties that were involved in the bombing to justice.
He loses if he dies while touching a pig, gets killed by a woman, or gets killed by a lefty. Let's make it all happen.
I am not in favor of the death penalty, but I don't care if he feels happy when he gets executed. At that point he'll briefly be happy-ish, and then he'll be rotting meat that we at least don't need to pay for anymore.
As for the afterlife, we all know he's not going to get any virgins when he dies. The best he can hope for is that he doesn't end up in eternal torment. Allah or not, what he did doesn't fit the idea of the Holy Warrior as even mainstream Islam would define it. He's an extremist who is using his purported faith as an excuse for whatever feelings of alienation he has. Those feelings were preyed upon by the terrorist groups, but ultimately, he's responsible for himself.
It's like Christians who went on Crusades who believed that a God who let himself be hung on a cross would actually want them to go slaughter people over some kingdom. It's just bad behavior draped in a convenient excuse.
The only reason to keep him alive is that he is able to perhaps redeem himself in some small way so he does have the chance to look at what he did and reject it. While unlikely, *that* sort of turnaround might actually have a chance to help someone else by showing that he got over his delusions and he no longer believes he was righteous.
More importantly, it is so we know that we aren't the sort of people who think that killing people more actually makes anything better.
Do you not understand the meaning of the word 'most'?
Hey, shithead: Mrs. Scott has ALREADY FORGIVEN THE MURDERER OF HER SON.
You should brush up on being human.
Hey, Partisan Asshole: Madoff took down a lot of no-longer-comfortable GOP types, too. Not everybody in Palm Beach is a looney lefty.
And do you really care a out the political affiliation of a group that helps the needy?
Work on being a better human, OK?
Too bad no country or state has the option of the penalty of death by torture - because terrorists like this moron needs to die really slowly while experiencing pain comparable to the sum of the pain experienced by the victims of his bomb.
Plea negotiations broke down in early 2015. No details were reached to my knowledge (and a brief websearch just now), but the speculation was that the Feds refused to take the death penalty off the table even for a guilty plea.
Not that you asked, but I'm from Boston and the Marathon is one of my favorite events in the world and for far more than the race. It is a HUGE community event were for 26+ miles strangers stand in places 3 and more deep to urge on 10,000 total strangers who are making a (usually) once-in-a-lifetime attempt to beat what is considered the toughest marathon course in the world. Many, many, many non-elite runners talk about how that crowd is all that kept them moving long after they were physically spent. For decades we watched Team Hoyt, a father who pushed his BEAMING quadriplegic son 26.2 miles. Even in cold, nasty weather the outpouring of support and kindness and happiness is astounding.
Now, all that said: I don't this poor dipshit put to death. We're better than that, in Boston and humanity at large.
So, sue me.
You really think ANY Federal venue in the US wasn't full of people who a) know what happened and b) who did it?
Fuggedaboudit.
"Ooh ooh ahhhh aha ee EEEEE aaaAAAAAggghhh!" - Nim Chimpsky
Conspiracy Theory idiots will make conspiracy theories about anything.
Why don't you make conspiracy theories about the school system that fucked up your science education so badly?
that one exists already, no need to make it up again
It went to trial because It wanted to waste the peoples money and cause grief for as long as possible. It used the Constitutions to Its advantage. It sucks too there are some things i think people need to be executed for, this is number 1 on my short list. I think a very clear message should be given to would be terrorist, if caught and prosecuted, death WILL be you punishment.
Given that a lot of terrorists nowadays are either literally or effectively suicide bombers, I don't think that is a message they care much about.
The death penalty simply guarantees them martyr status in the eyes of their fellows.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Would it not make more sense to just exchange a guilty plea for taking the death penalty off the table?
What everyone seems to be forgetting is that a terrorist would never admit that they are guilty of murder. In their eyes, they are soldiers fighting in a war, and so should be treated as prisoners of war.
This was the whole point of the IRA "dirty protest" during the Troubles: they thought that they should be treated as political prisoners rather than common criminals.
This is not an attempt to justify terrorism, I'm just pointing out why a genuine terrorist would never agree to a guilty plea for a crime.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
What Osama orchestrated wasn't a crime, it was an act of war, different rules apply.
Terrorism on a large scale is still terrorism, and is treated as a crime. 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombings are both crimes of mass murder.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Overdub this with "Achy, Breaky Heart," also on loop.
Wow, talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You've never personally seen evidence of all of the above?
Are you 5 years old or something?
What I cannot understand is why people think the government would crash the planes in the towers and implode the towers. Isn't crashing the planes dramatic enough? Are they claiming that without the towers falling down it wouldn't have been a good enough terrorist attack? So much that they would go to the trouble of putting explosives in the towers (and increasing a lot the risk of getting caught) and explode them right after the planes had crashed?
The point I was making was really that because different jurisdictions have different laws regarding speeding, the burden of proof is different. For a civil infraction there's no requirement to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In your state clearly the laws are different, and would therefore I presume require the state to have 'harder' evidence than just a cop's word to successfully prosecute.
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
That's a really bad (and hopelessly naive) presumption to make.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
As I asked before, please provide an example.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I understand the word perfectly. Which is why I question it's usage in this context.
Given the studies I have read, I question whether "most" people who go to trial are, in fact, guilty. While I am not a conspiracy theorist and I don't believe there is some grand scheme to unfairly target specific groups, I do think most cops are human and, as such, subject to human failings. They make mistakes. Some of them, a small percentage at most, actually intentionally accuse the wrong person. Yet they are above reproach in the justice system more often than not. You have to prove beyond a doubt that they are wrong.
The juries are also woefully unprepared to do their work and, as such, make mistakes. Far too much credence is given to eyewitness testimony. There are a non trivial number of cases where people are pressured into fingering someone, anyone, just so they can wrap up the investigation. And, in a few cases, malicious people have wrongly identified someone intentionally. Then there is the fact that it's been conclusively proven that people's memory is notoriously unreliable, especially in stressful situations. As a result, they are utterly convinced that they correctly identified the right person when, in fact, they have fingered the wrong person. Throw all of this at a woefully under prepared jury of schleps off the street and you get more than a few false convictions.
The whole justice system is fundamentally broken. Not because of malicious intent so much as under funding, laziness, and incompetence.
As a result, the highest threshold I'll agree to is that "many" people who go to trial are actually guilty of committing the crime they are accused of. I don't believe that "most" are guilty.
So you're suggesting that Pearl Harbor should have been investigated by the FBI instead of getting a response from the Pentagon?
Die Die Die!!!
I wish he fries in hell !!!
That's what you get for hurting America!!
Shut up, white man.
Not just New Zealand. Australia, the UK, many countries around the world.
Police just don't carry guns, because there is literally no need.
Disclaimer: I'm an Aussie who also lived in New Zealand for 5 years and now live in California.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
You have the same rights in the justice system as unconvicted criminals do, if accused of a crime. If you think them insufficient, feel free to write your legislator about increasing protections for people charged with crimes.
As far as the appeals go, you're comparing the death penalty with life imprisonment. There are going to be automatic appeals and court hearings in the case of a death sentence, but not a life sentence. Your hypothetical innocent man serving life has exactly the same deal as an actual murderer serving life.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Lawyers are expensive.
Moreover, in a disagreement where a police officer says one thing, the defendant says another, and the police officer is automatically believed, where is the justice? Where is the presumption of innocence? In any non-civil legal proceeding, it should be the job of the prosecution to show that the defendant is guilty, not the job of the defendant to try to come up with evidence to show that he or she is innocent.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Well, I will admit that if people were not allowed to carry guns, the criminals would be a lot safer in their chosen line of work. however, ordinary citizens would not be safer. There is no guarantee that cooperating with an armed criminal will result in you living through the day. I can point to two instances in the last five years in my city of only 20,000 people where an armed man demanded money of an unarmed person, the unarmed person cooperated fully, and then was shot dead.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Here is an example of a man in jail serving a life sentence for self defense. Of course you said an example where the man didn't go overboard in defending himself. Of course, there is no such thing as overboard when someone is pointing a gun at you. Only judges, jurists and armchair quarterbacks think that there is such a thing is restraint when someone has a gun in your face. Well, not all judges, jurists and armchair quarterbacks. Some of them have had guns thrust in their faces and understand what that does to a person's sense of self preservation.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Lawyers are expensive.
Moreover, in a disagreement where a police officer says one thing, the defendant says another, and the police officer is automatically believed, where is the justice?
It is in the believability of the witnesses. Unfortunately, you simply must give the police officer more weight because of their position. There is justice there, even if you don't necessarily agree, it isn't without it's logic, reason and Legal precedent. In my mind it has to be this way.
However, precedent CAN be changed though appeals (unlikely) or though jury trials (expensive). You can help get the long established assumptions that the officer is more than likely telling the truth over the citizen who's being charged by fighting it. Fight it in court, demand a jury trial, appeal any convictions and otherwise make the prosecutor work hard to make the charge stick. Work on changing the assumptions, get the precedent changed for others and make the assumptions of preferring the Officer over the citizen no longer valid. Ask your state and local lawmakers to change the law. DO SOMETHING other than just complain about it.
However, think about what will happen if/when you manage to get this assumption changed so that an officer is no longer seen as a more reliable witness. What do you think will happen once the word gets out that all you have to do is show up, demand a trial where you say "I didn't do what he says I did" and you are likely to get off? You can bet EVERYBODY would do it then and there'd be no point in writing traffic tickets anymore. Just show up to the arraignment, make your appearance at trial, say you didn't do it and get off. Is that a good thing? I'm not so sure it is.
So I'm not so quick to throw out the good with the bad here. I'm guessing that the vast majority of Officers are writing valid tickets. There are only a handful that are bad raps. In my experience I've been pulled over three times, issued 5 citations and only one of those I don't believe I deserved or where not dismissed (like the ones for not having proof of insurance available, which where tossed when I provided proof I had insurance). I've had to pay 1 fine which I don't believe I deserved out of 5 tickets. But I'd not like to live in a world where blowing stop signs, running red lights and speeding couldn't be enforced. I think I'd rather risk being unfairly fined over driving in a world where getting out of a traffic ticket was as easy as lying about it. In terms of safety, I prefer the occasional unfair fine over the rash of deaths that would flow out of changing how traffic court works.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
What I'm saying is that there is no presumption of innocence, if a police officer's word is enough to make you automatically guilty in court. I'm not saying that most police are bad, but it appears that most may well be bad in Ferguson, say.
Nor do we have to just rely on the officer's word any more. We have camera technology so we can bring video evidence into court. That's not just one person's word against another's.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Why is this on Slashdot?
With all possible respect, that is incorrect. The death penalty exists to dissuade others from committing the same crime.
Yet you don't answer the question. If we change the natural weight of a police officer's testimony, what happens then?
I get what you are saying. The officer who testified at my trial obviously didn't remember what she saw and although I did, I got sunk on her word alone. I didn't think that was fair. But years later and having talked to a number of police officers I realize that the current arrangement simply *must* be this way. The alternative is chaos.
Personally, I'd rather pay a fine or two over driving where nobody fears breaking the traffic laws, where a traffic ticket is meaningless because paying the fine is optional.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Doesn't work.
Well it did work just fine for me. So "doesn't always work" is probably accurate.
They changed the charge after I got there to one I wasn't prepared to disprove (but was no more valid).
Yeah that seems pretty dubious. But if they had actually pulled that on me I'd have responded that I'll need time to prepare a new defense against these new charges; and time to consult my lawyer.
There's no way they can charge you with a new offense AT YOUR TRIAL and then prosecute you for it immediately like that.
I got a ticket when I crashed a motorbike because the cop that responded thought I deserved punishment for his trouble of showing up. Speeding (30 in a 55,
Speeding is more than just exceeding the posted limit. Driving too fast to maintain safe control of the vehicle is illegal. You lost control of your vehicle. That the issue was your own inexperience more than the weather or the condition of the road doesn't really matter.
with lots of witnesses), and passing in a no-passing zone, because I crossed the center line when I crashed.
Crossing the center line (when not part of a legal passing maneuver is also illegal.)
You can of course legitimately argue that those aren't the best offenses to charge you under; and you might even be right. But face facts -- you were driving and you crashed and you were 100% responsible for the crash -- its pretty hard to do that and not run afoul of the motor vehicle acts in some way.
so he flat made-up tickets unrelated to what I actually did
I think the tickets, while perhaps not ideal, were reasonable choices.
to make sure I got punished for bothering him on a Saturday Afternoon.
Perhaps; perhaps not. I don't know what happened, what the damage / injury level was. It certainly could have been him just being a dick -- or it could be that he felt you were a legitimate danger to yourself and to the public and wanted to send you that message.
There's no way they can charge you with a new offense AT YOUR TRIAL and then prosecute you for it immediately like that.
When some jackass on the Internet disagrees with reality, I'll go with reality. For a traffic ticket, if you show up, they will generally always let you plea "no lo contendre" and get a fine without conviction. So it won't show up on your record, you don't have to tell your insurance company. Paying the fine is cheaper than fighting.
or it could be that he felt you were a legitimate danger to yourself and to the public and wanted to send you that message.
Of course, he didn't bother to issue a ticket for "careless/reckless" driving. Those usually require a stricter standard for a conviction. If he thought I was a legitimate threat, he should have charged me with it, rather than making up lies to harass someone innocent of the crimes accused.
Learn to love Alaska
When some jackass on the Internet disagrees with reality, I'll go with reality
I'm not saying it didn't actually happen. I'm saying had you challenged it, they would legally have HAD to give you more time. Of course, if you didn't challenge it and just said ok, then its ok. Its like the police demanding to search your car... if you say "ok"... then they can.