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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Gets Death Penalty In Boston Marathon Bombing
mpicpp writes with a link to the New York Times's version of story that a Boston jury earlier today returned a verdict of death in the Boston Marathon bombing. From that report: A federal jury on Friday condemned Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a failed college student, to death for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed three people and injured hundreds more in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001. The jury of seven women and five men, which last month convicted Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, of all 30 charges against him, 17 of which carry the death penalty, took more than 14 hours to reach its decision. It was the first time a federal jury had sentenced a terrorist to death in the post-Sept. 11 era, according to Kevin McNally, director of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, which coordinates the defense in capital punishment cases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
I generally oppose the death penalty for two reasons:
1) I've come to distrust the government in general
2) I've been in jury deliberations twice. This was far more damaging to my faith in our justice system.
But I'm not going to lose sleep over this one.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
The dead do not exist for all their lives in a six foot by ten foot box. They do not weep for lost freedom, nor yearn for sunshine and gentle wind. They do not slip gradually to the madness of long isolation. Tsarnaev should be made to know these things.
Meh.
This guy is obviously a massive douche and murderer, and there's no doubt as to his guilt, but I think killing him doesn't reflect well on us as a society. To me, killing killers always had the same logic as suspending people who ditch school. It's like-- wait, what's the message here exactly?
Given the history of "humane" non-cruel, non-unusual tools for execution ("hanging! no wait, firing squad! no, we mean electrocution! Umm... lethal injection? Gassing?"), it strikes me as just one of the many feel-good but fucked up practices we haven't dropped yet.
The only people that are interested in making a stand against the jury's decision in this particular case would be those opposed to the death penalty in all cases, basically those that do not believe that the State should kill people.
In this particular case, most entities that oppose the death penalty for specific reasons, like those that are concerned for the reliability of justice and the danger of executing innocent people, are extremely unlikely to have grounds for such an objection, given the dramatic and highly public events that led to his eventual apprehension combined with his written words admitting to his actions.
I suspect that most of those who do object to the use of the death penalty for the first reason I mentioned probably wouldn't choose to stake their movement on this particular case, given the nature of what happened. Attempting to fight against it would probably cause more harm for the movement than good.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The Abrahamic god is a vengeful douchebag who demands blood, is the short answer.
His adherents are bloodthirsty and heavily into vengeance and keep telling us their god demands it.
From stoning to the death penalty, this is 100% about humans exacting retribution through violent means in the name of their god.
Either the humans are bloodthirsty savages, or god clearly is.
But the underlying justification is "god has commanded me to kill people in his name".
Ask yourself: why do we listen to deluded people who can't grasp that if god demanded a death, why doesn't he do it himself?
The worst criminals often live the best lives.
That is only true if they have power, and connections to the outside. Tsarnaev would have had neither. If he had been given life-without-parole, he would have spent it at ADX Florence, which has been described as "a cleaner version of hell".
The problem I have with his death penalty, is that it is sending the message that if you hate someone, you can kill them ... which was his rationale for the bombing in the first place.
I understand Europeans and others have difficulty understanding this. I'll explain:
We generally believe that certain crimes are so horrific that the only possible punishment is death. Unlike other places, our criminal justice system is not merely based around removing the threat from society, or rehabilitating them, but also around the idea of punishment.
Personally I find it horrific that in places like Norway someone like Brevik can be sentenced to only 21 years in prison for murdering dozens of people. This negates and ignores what he has done, and instead only focuses on rehabilitation, i.e., focusing on what this man can do in the future. The idea being that the past is past, and punishing someone won't bring back the people he killed.
This misses the point. Justice based upon the idea of punishing someone, as a part of retributive justice or deterrence, has a long history, and while continentals may disagree, it's what we in the US choose to do. We believe, or at least our court system does, that some people DESERVE to die for their actions.
The death penalty is not an effective deterrent against murder.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-...
What deters murderers is not the penalty, but the likelihood of being caught.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
because it is not very nice when people come into your home and kill people at random is it.
You keep him in prison for the rest of his life with no possibility of parole.
The State should never ever have the ability to kill its own citizens, and that obviously includes criminals.
The trial was a farce, just like soviet-era show trials. It was about revenge not justice.
I can't condone the death penalty. In any case. There's the slightest chance you might be wrong.
I'm a Catholic, so that certainly colors my opinion. I don't believe any man has the authority to deliberately* take the life of another.
I just don't see the purpose of the death penalty. It is no deterrent. If you wrongfully execute someone, there is no chance for recompense. And life in a box sounds horrid; a fate worse than death. If you're an atheist, the murderer is getting off incredibly easy. If you're amongst the faithful, well, there is no escape from God's judgment, anyway.
There's just no point. Let him sit in a box and think about what he did for the next seventy-plus years. "Tax dollars" are hardly an issue.
* By "deliberately" I mean "with time to deliberate about it." I understand the necessity of taking a life to prevent someone from taking the lives of others. But if there's no immediate danger...
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
And as each group kills members of the other group, they're both encouraged to continue killing in retribution. The mentality is the same for common street gangs and for nations.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Drone strikes that hit the wrong people, targetting wedding parties etc ie generally killing the wrong people, killing children because of who their parents are and calling them legitimate targets. Many others in numerous incidents your press do not report. It may not be random for the person giving the order it certainly is a random and arbitary death sentence for the poor sod on the receiving end.
... to revenge-killing. Particularly state-sanctioned revenge killing.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Well, by that logic, it's fine for me to come into your house and kill you because the USA killed someone somewhere. Right? Logic doesn't matter, intent doesn't matter, just go off and kill people.
Sigh.. You can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. In certain environments, that can also cause or risk your own death/health.
The problem is freedom, you cannot force it onto people and still be free. Sure it is a betrayal but lets be honest or perhaps realistic, it is only a betrayal by this guy and his brother (speed bump or whatever his name was). The rest of his family and all the others taken in as refugees, even if they are sympathetic by circumstance or familiar relation, haven't crossed that ideal of betrayal. This guy was brought in by his parents and likely not of his own choice although I doubt he rejected the idea. So lets be conscious about this enough to not allow corruption of blood.
And no, while a .22 will do the job just fine, I think it is important to give this guy every legal chance possible to dispel the concept of it being a show trial and summery execution. People have already stated they think he was set up. But a good and thorough appeals process along with exhaustive exercising of his rights will show not only that justice is fair, but that what he betrayed is better than him.
AC hasn't exactly justified Tsarnaev - he has given food for thought. He last sentence, "Just something to think about." He makes it pretty clear that if we weren't such arrogant bastards ourselves, then we may have had more sympathy from the world at large when the terrorists hit us. And, there is some suggestion that if we were less overbearing overseas, then just MAYBE the terrorists wouldn't have hit us.
Food for thought, assuredly.
Is he right? Is he wrong? I can't say for sure. But he does offer food for thought.
Yeah, I'm aware that Muslim terrorists are waging war on three continents already, against people who ARE NOT arrogant, overbearing bastards with military bases located around the world. Maybe the terrorists would have hit the Twin Towers anyway, and maybe the Tsarnaev brothers would have bombed the Boston Marathon anyway. I can't say for sure.
Think about it though.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
But what the American government did? Nothing!
You contradict yourself. The American government did do something.
They asked him if he was a terrorist. He said "no." They believed him.
This is what happens when we elect a Muslim sympathizer to the White House. We just take their words when they say they aren't terrorists.
Kind of like how we're taking Iran's word that they won't nuke Israel after we let them build a bomb.
That's how I feel about it - some people simply do not deserve to live with the rest of humanity. There should never, ever be a chance that some people should ever have the possibility of afflicting more atrocities on society. I can can understand arguments about when it's perhaps not clear the perpetrator was guilty (and, of course, it sadly has happened before)... but of course, that didn't happen in this case.
People think it's all about punishment, but it's also about keeping those who'd violate your rights away from you.
I think all of your concerns can be addressed equally with execution or incarceration. So, why not chose incarceration? It's cheaper, it maintains a morally superior position for the justice system, and it can be reversed in the event a conviction is wrongful.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I understand Europeans and others have difficulty understanding this. I'll explain:
To be clear: polls show that about 1/3 of Americans don't buy your logic. So while you may speak for many in the U.S., there is a substantial minority that disagrees.
We generally believe that certain crimes are so horrific that the only possible punishment is death. Unlike other places, our criminal justice system is not merely based around removing the threat from society, or rehabilitating them, but also around the idea of punishment.
Funny, that. The U.S. justice system has a long history of claiming that lex talionis is no longer our operating principle. That's why we have departments of "corrections" where we supposedly "rehabilitate" people. But you implicitly are claiming that's all rhetoric -- that when it comes down to it, we're just after revenge.
After all, what other justification is there for punishment when it is not intended to rehabilitate?
This misses the point. Justice based upon the idea of punishing someone, as a part of retributive justice or deterrence, has a long history, and while continentals may disagree, it's what we in the US choose to do. We believe, or at least our court system does, that some people DESERVE to die for their actions.
I'm in the U.S. I used to be at least a nominal supporter of the death penalty. I remember having long debates with friends when I was younger, and I made similar arguments to what you do. I also came up with other tangential justifications, which often appear here on Slashdot, like "it'd be worse if I were kept in prison for life, so I'd rather die in those circumstances -- therefore we should kill them" or whatever.
But as I've grown older, I've realized that arguments in favor of the death penalty inevitably boil down to FOUR main justifications:
(1) I'm mad at that guy. That's essentially what you're endorsing -- somebody did something bad, so I'm mad and I'm gonna kill him.
(2) I'm afraid of that guy. This is the argument that some people are so evil and cannot be rehabilitated, so they should be "put down" for the good of society. That might be valid reasoning if there weren't an alternative -- but we have maximum security prisons now. We don't need to kill this person to protect us.
(3) I want to scare other people. This has nothing to do with the actual justice served on an individual, but rather the idea that the death penalty actually deters other criminals from committing murder. There are some studies that suggest the death penalty may have a minor effect as a deterrent; there are others that refute that claim and say there is no statistical effect. One this is clear: Murderers are deterred by fear that they will be caught and go to prison, but a distant possibility of a death penalty is less of a deterrent. Perhaps if we reinstituted public executions where we tortured people in Times Square before killing them in some horrific way, maybe it might deter somebody... but the death penalty is applied so rarely and randomly that it can't function as a realistic deterrent.
(4) We've always done it this way. That's basically your other argument: there's a long history of revenge killing by the state, so why not continue to do it? it's the same wacky logic that propagates all sorts of ridiculous and stupid traditions and keeps our society from getting better. "I'm gonna haze these young dudes, because I was hazed." "When I was first starting out, I had to work 60 hours each week on little pay, so why shouldn't I do the same to these stupid kids." Etc. Sometimes to improve society, it makes sense to interrogate our traditions and ask whether they're actually doing good things, or whether it might be better for everyone if we found another way
Just to make sure I understand you here:
It is OK for Dzhokar to target a crowd of spectators because the U.S. military kills more people than it should with drone strikes?
There are similarities between Dzhokar killing civilian spectators and the U.S. military killing civilian spectators at a wedding.
The main difference is that the U.S. military will say, "We only intended to kill bad guys. We didn't intend to kill civilians."
This is subject to a just war analysis. A war is justified when the aggressor has tried every other reasonable approach, when the goal is justified, and the aggressor tries to minimize damages. I'm not convinced this is true for the drone attacks.
I'm not absolutely against the death penalty. I could accept it under 3 conditions: (1) The defendant must actually be guilty (2) The defendant must have had a fair trial (3) Other defendants who committed similar crimes must have gotten the same penalty.
I would compare the Boston Marathon killings to the Nusoor Square killings, where Blackwater private security contractors killed 17 people. My interpretation of the evidence is that the killings were unjustified and indiscriminate, and part of a pattern of such killings by Blackwater. One Blackwater contractor was sentenced to life in prison, and 3 others were sentenced to 30 years.
Dzhokar's death sentence fails my third condition. If we didn't sentence any of the Blackwater contractors to death, then we can't sentence Dzhokar to death.
The problem with the death penalty is that there is no way to repair damage to people who were not guilty of the crime they were executed for. This happens way more often than anyone likes to admit.
With this case, do you want me to believe that rehabilitation is not possible? I say bullshit, especially when the person convicted was a minor at the time this happened with an adult influencing his behavior. Rehabilitation is possible until proven otherwise, and it was not attempted here.
Unfortunately, people in the US have been duped into thinking that the only purposes of a sentence are punishment and retribution.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." --attributed to M. Gandhi.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The link is that the conservatives blame everything bad that happens on liberal ideology when there's a Democrat in the White House, and the liberals blame everything on the conservative ideology when a Republican is in the White House, irregardless of what the rest of the government is actually doing.
Conservatives are stereotypically the party that wants to take the direct approach to solving problems, and prefer to spend tax money on helping winners: military, business, churches, prisons, etc.
Liberals are stereotypically the party that wants progressive solutions to problems, and prefer to spend tax money on helping losers: through education, labor unions, health care, environmentalism, community centers, etc.
So they both want essentially the same things... peace, prosperity, they just go about it different ways. Liberals would like to eliminate poverty by helping poor people become less poor; conservatives would prefer to eliminate poverty by eliminating poor people.
Because of things like this, conservatives view liberals as weak, and liberals view conservatives as afraid. And they like to point that out whenever they can.