Per multiple media reports, the jury recommended a death sentence for the Boston Marathon bomber instead of life in prison. The bomber is a worthless little shit-bucket who caused a great deal of grief and suffering. But we’ve got no business kicking even murdering assholes like him off the planet if they can be prevented from doing further harm instead, in my opinion. YMMV.
Reader Interactions
206Comments
Comments are closed.
Germy Shoemangler
I would have preferred to see him spend the rest of his natural life in a cell, contemplating his crime.
Elizabelle
I am ashamed for that “death qualified” jury and appalled at the sentence.
Boston Strong? No. They’re fucking cowards.
Bill
I just can’t cheer another death. Even the death of a murderer. Particularly one so young.
Elizabelle
Already back to the Mad Men marathon.
Does the judge have to impose a death sentence, or does s/he have leverage to lessen it?
Howard Beale IV
Too bad the Feds don’t allow for the guillotine-we could have answered Alito’s question about whether the condemned could feel anything by wiring him up to an EEG right after the blade falls.
c u n d gulag
I’ve been a life-long opponent of the death penalty.
Why not study these murderous vermin, to find out what makes them tick, and prevent other murderous vermin?
PS: I was also against executing McVeigh.
We should have studied him, too.
Betty Cracker
I believe Massachusetts has abolished the death penalty (and good for them), but since this was a federal trial, it was on the table.
Elizabelle
@Bill: Yeah, especially since so young.
This is a deplorable sentence. Maybe the jury was bribed by the military industrial complex, because they sure birthed another Muslim martyr.
Way to go, “death qualified” jury. You’re as sharp and bright as the Trayvon Martin jurors, apparently.
rikyrah
I’m not a supporter of the Death Penalty, but, oh well.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Great question. I don’t know. But I’d be surprised if the judge set aside a unanimous jury recommendation.
dedc79
Killing is wrong.
Ok killing is not always wrong. It’s ok to kill a killer.
Ok, it’s not always ok to kill a killer. It’s only ok to kill a killer if the state is doing the killing.
Ah, I see. That makes a lot of sense.
SatanicPanic
I agree, but then again, I’m not really going to get all that bummed either.
raven
It’s an act of mercy for someone who doesn’t deserve it.
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
You’d have to wire him up to the EEG beforehand. When I got an EEG, it took them something like 15 minutes to apply all the electrodes. You ought to be able to get some preliminary results on laboratory animals before trying it on a person, too.
mbhuff
I’ve always been against the death penalty, but regardless of my feelings, the federal law provides for it. I’d like to see the law changed, but given it’s the law, anything other than the death penalty in this case would be an injustice. His guilt was certain, the law’s guidelines provide for it, and if wasn’t given it, then it would make a joke of the system.
Change the law.
Rachel
Too bad. Why give him what he wants?
Tone in DC
Not surprised they came back with this verdict. Just surprised it wasn’t faster.
As for Tsarnaev… I’m biased, and not the best one to condemn/not condemn him. The families of the victims are.
schrodinger's cat
Copied from the previous thread, my response to Elizabelle:
I am against the death penalty in general. However if one thinks that the death penalty is justified then what Tsarnaev did surely qualifies him for it. He killed innocent bystanders for no apparent reason in a country that had granted his family asylum.
schrodinger's cat
@mbhuff: Agreed!
donnah
I’m against the death penalty as well. You don’t spank a child and tell him he’s not supposed to hit people. And you don’t kill people and tell others it’s wrong to kill.
He killed and maimed a lot of innocent people. He’s his own monster. Let him spend the rest of his days in prison thinking about that.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
My guess is, it would take half a minute or so before the traces went dead. I would not care to imagine being in that half-minute.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Vehemently against the death penalty. I think this is a vile verdict, pronounced by a vile, corrupt, awful society that truly does not give a single fuck about human life. But hey, we’re still #1, at least in putting people in prison.
That being said, well, I’m not going to be standing outside of the prison holding a sign when his time comes, because he’s just as hideous, murderous and shitty as the society slaughtering him is.
MattF
@mbhuff: I agree with this. I’m leery of a jury ignoring a law because they disagree with it. Ignoring a law may work for you for some issues, but then will bite you on a different one. Given that the jury was ‘death qualified’, given the law… I don’t see much alternative.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
I look at it another way: it’s blood that society doesn’t need to have on its collective hands
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: Good points, S cat.
I still think the death penalty is wrong here, though, particularly given Tsarnaev’s youth. I don’t know I could have given a death sentence to an older perp, either.
Is throwing those inclined to be more merciful off a “death qualified” jury a sign the defendant not actually being sentenced by a jury of his peers? I think it is.
Believe the Boston community, although not by a huge margin, opposed the death penalty in this case. I know that young Martin Richard’s parents spoke out against it.
aimai
@Elizabelle: Jesus christ, don’t be such an asshole. The majority of Boston and MA residents are anti death penalty and the feds had to specifically empanel a Jury that was “death qualified” and could, conceivably, recommend the death penalty. This has nothing to do with the rest of the population of MA or the (admittedly pathetic) slogan “Boston Strong.” I’m opposed to the Death Penalty and I wish they hadn’t gone for it at all for Tsarnaev but not everyone agrees. That doesn’t make them “cowards.” It just means that this jury, having heard all the testimony and seen Tsarnaev for the entire trial, lacked the kind of pity that you need, in the absence of a principled anti death penalty stance, to refuse the State’s demand for the death penalty.
catclub
@donnah:
of course not, you spank him and tell him not to hit people smaller than he is.
Bobby Thomson
@Elizabelle: with all due respect, you’re full of shit.
dedc79
@Tone in DC:
One purpose of our criminal “justice” system is for the state to take punishment out of the hands of the victim and/or the victim’s family. The alternative – the system where victims and their families do get to control punishment and retribution – well there are countries where that still happens and suffice it to say it’s not a pretty thing.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
@Roger Moore:
That’s been on my mind, ever since Wolf Hall finale with the Anne Boleyn beheading.
I have been wondering if the head would experience pain at all — since the spinal column would have been severed, I am thinking maybe not?? — although the head might remain conscious for a few seconds, possibly a long few seconds. Could still see and hear, alas.
brrrrr.
jon
Re: martyrdom
Who cares what he thinks? Seriously, whether he thinks it’s awesome or terrible or blasphemy or it will give him multiple orgasms isn’t something a jury is supposed to give two tiny sharts about as it considers the punishment fit for a crime.
I’m against the death penalty. I think it’s a waste of government resources to spend all the time and money it takes to get it to happen. I think it’s never given fairly. I think there are too many instances where it was given unfairly. And it’s not easy for me to see where there are do-overs in those cases.
And when I worked at a prison, I met too many people who deserved it but were only serving a regular sentence. And I met too many people serving a life sentence who kind of wanted it, too. Justice isn’t ever going to be right. Blind with scales. Blind with that sword. We can do better somehow.
WereBear
ATTENTION NEW YORK ANIMAL LOVERS:
Take Political Action, for your kitties!
Law to Ban Declawing up for Vote in New York State
There’s some political action we can take at the link… please do so!
It means a lot!
Thank you.
Alice
@Elizabelle: @Elizabelle:
This should never have been a death penalty case. Mass does not have the death penalty. Over 60% of us oppose it. Some of the victims opposed it. It took them forever to seat this jury because it was difficult to find enough people willing to impose a death sentence. Once they had that panel, though, it was almost a foregone conclusion. It would be pretty hard to say, I can imagine sentencing someone to death, but not this guy. Especially after sitting through such emotional and gruesome testimony. As a Mass resident and death penalty opponent, I am very disappointed. This accomplishes nothing. I am not surprised, just sad.
marduk
It’s an unfortunate exemplar of our screwed up jury selection process that forbids death penalty opponents from serving in death penalty eligible cases. The Tzarnaev jury is extremely unrepresentative of the people of Massachusetts in general, and Boston in particular.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/04/26/globe-poll-shows-diminishing-support-for-death-penalty-for-tsarnaev/S3GMhFlGj5VUkZrmLzh1iN/story.html
Howard Beale IV
@Roger Moore: Of course you’d have to wire him up beforehand. It goes without saying that we have massive amounts of EEG data on individuals in all sorts of states-but during the recent SCOTUS case involving midazolam as being cruel and unusual Alito was alleged to have mumbled something along the lines of we wouldn’t be having this argument over decapitation. Unless we have a fair amount of EEG data of animals in pain, I don’t think an animal study would yield anything that would answer Alito’s morbid question.
marduk
@Elizabelle: In fact the people of Boston opposed the death penalty by a huge margin, with only 15% in support. Also, GFY.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
As other people have noted, the reason that this was a federal prosecution is that Massachusetts does not have the death penalty, and federal prosecutors were determined to get it. Blame the Feds, not the citizens of Massachusetts.
David Koch
Death?
Couldn’t they just suspend him for 4 games, like Brady?
Elizabelle
@aimai:
@Bobby Thomson: I am an asshole, and full of shit. So be it.
I also don’t think that a “death qualified” jury is a jury of his peers, when the greater community might have been inclined to be more merciful.
I say that as someone who lived in Northern Virginia during the Beltway Sniper shootings. I remember being in shopping center parking lots and wondering if I was a target. Sprinting.
Still would not have voted to execute John Muhammed. I could see humanity in him, in McVeigh, and in Tsarnaev.
muddy
Hero-worshipping his brother took him down a dark road. I don’t think he’d have done these terrible things else. I’m reminded of Othello:
I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well.
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme. Of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe. Of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum.
Poopyman
@Elizabelle: Well, the Googlenet is full of such musings. Here’s one I found that at least has some doctors’ opinions. Plus bonus gruesome story!
JPL
I wouldn’t have been selected for the jury.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
If he’s gonna be executed, pick a method that’ll deny him his martyrdom, like death by woman.
Elizabelle
@Poopyman: Thank you. Had found the Korean accident victim story earlier, but your article was more informative.
Poopyman
@JPL: I don’t know why, but I keep thinking of the draft board scene in “Alice’s Restaurant” when I hear “death qualified jury”.
Tree With Water
@aimai: Lenny Bruce once remarked the Israelis had shaven Eichmann’s head and ankles long before the conclusion of his trial (as if he were to be electrocuted). This monster’s fate was as good as sealed when the decision was made to exclude death penalty opponents from the jury.
Of the two alternatives, a verdict of life behind bars would have been by far the crueler fate, and the one I wish had been chosen
goblue72
@aimai: Exactly. If a majority of Boston area residents oppose the death penalty, then this “death qualified” jury means a jury selected from amongst a pool of Boston area residents whose views are amongst the minority of Boston area residents.
eemom
Ah, another thread where folks turn on a regular commenter and start calling names the instant an unpopular opinion is expressed. Good times.
@Elizabelle:
Fuck ’em.
raven
@Amir Khalid: And I respect that, I just feel the way I feel.
Yatsuno
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: Death by Snu-snu? I actually kind of like that idea.
And you do not execute Muslims. Especially those who were convinced by their brother they will beome martyrs for their actions.
Tone in DC
@dedc79:
I see your point (I vaguely remember that part of EuroCiv from the last millennium). I say this: I am biased against most terrorists, regardless of the age of the perpetrator. This kind of crime sets my teeth on edge.
Also: I am NOT saying random, incredibly inaccurate drone strikes are any better.
Elizabelle
@Alice: Thank you; most informative.
Disappointed in what the Feds did in Mass. residents’ name, when they no longer had a death penalty and were against it.
Perhaps that can be grounds for an appeal. Perhaps not.
Elizabelle
@eemom: Thank you. I was a bit surprised, but it is the intertubes.
JPL
Tsarnaev will have new attorneys for his appeal. Is that normal?
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
I would guess that we have plenty to base scientific conclusions on. As a scientist, I can assure you that doing all kinds of terrible things to animals and seeing what happens is a major part of biology. Some of them have to have been wired up to EEGs while that was happening.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Since it was a death penalty qualified jury, it was apparent on the first day. Several jurors cried throughout the testimony and some cried today. They showed humanity also and will probably suffer for years.
I do hope that his name is off the front pages for awhile, in order to allow families to move on.
gogol's wife
@Elizabelle:
@eemom:
What eemom said.
Can’t you disagree with someone without telling them GFY?
Irony Abounds
We don’t live in a perfect society. Innocents die on a daily basis, and I know sometimes an innocent is executed (this not being one of those cases). Quite frankly, the death, even if state imposed, of a vicious, cowardly terrorist who obviously had no qualms about killing innocents, really isn’t near the top of my outrage list. Thousands die in this country because of lack of healthcare, many many many innocents are killed because of gang violence, and we send our soldiers off to fight wars that should never have been fought. One estimate is that over 3,000 Americans die each year because of contaminated food, a number that dwarfs all those killed by the death penalty, let alone the innocents unfortunately executed. I think it is more vile and more barbaric that we have the means to substantially reduce food contaminated related deaths and choose not to do so than ridding the planet of a murderous POS.
Bobby Thomson
@eemom: all due respect, a lot of regular commenters are consistently full of shit.
singfoom
@eemom: @Elizabelle:
One person called her full of shit, another called her an asshole. I disagree with both. But acting as if there’s a mob after her is kind of overreacting, isn’t it?
Several replies to her comment about how they disagree with no venom or ad hominems.
I too think that he belongs in a cage for the rest of his life to contemplate all the lives he took. I’m also not surprised that it turned out this way.
Mike J
@aimai: How am I supposed to feel superior if I can’t denigrate an entire state full of strangers?
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I admire people who can see the humanity of the perpetrators of horrific acts, such as Helen Prejean. Myself, I don’t. But I do think offing murderers diminishes our collective humanity, so I’m against the death penalty under all circumstances.
Amir Khalid
@Tree With Water:
I’ve always wondered: If it’s unworthy for individuals to exact vengeance, how is it worthy for a society to do so on their behalf? If it were up to me, I would have jailed Eichmann for a couple of decades or so.
Then I’d decide whether he should go free. If he were still a danger, if for example he were likely to begin promoting anti-Semitic violence once freed, I’d keep him in jail. If people were waiting to kill him, I’d keep him inside for his own protection. Otherwise I’d let him go.
brantl
If you could ever be sure that the evidence was real, I would have no problem with a death sentence. The problem is, that if gets bigger every day. Texas has had 200 felony convictions overturned on DNA evidence, elucidated by the innocence project. How did they get the convictions in the first place? From the evidence of jailhouse snitches, giving the evidence, to get their own sentences reduced/lessened before conviction.
brantl
@Amir Khalid:
I would have left him to rot in a cell, until the meat fell off the bones.
Bobby Thomson
@gogol’s wife: she opened the door to it. Her original comment wasn’t exactly kumbaya.
dedc79
@Irony Abounds: I wasn’t aware that we had to choose between getting rid of capital punishment and reducing deaths from food contamination. I assumed we could be angry about both. I assumed we could work to fix both at the same time. Are my assumptions wrong?
trollhattan
@jon:
Per the prosecutor he had plenty of opportunities for martyrdom while still on the street and evading the cops and that proves he doesn’t want to be a martyr so: “Double-psych on you, Dzhokhar, we’re going to give you that thing you want us to think you want in order to make us not give it to you to deprive you of what you really want, but since you don’t, we totally are. BURN!”
The feds have executed three, total, since the death penalty was reestablished, so I’m not going to worry too much about the sentence being carried out. I’m agin’ it, but doubt it will occur.
Bobby Thomson
@Irony Abounds: this.
Elizabelle
WP just ate a comment. It was pretty much this one:
@gogol’s wife: Especially since marduk and I are kind of in agreement on Bostonians’ views of the death penalty. Quel surprise.
The cowards comment was aimed at the jury, not Boston or Massachusetts at large.
Then said that, even being death qualified, the jury — or a juror — could have chosen mercy.
Tree With Water
@JPL: I worked a job once that took me into restaurants and bars while the businesses were closed. When I got to a cozy little seafood place one day the place was as usual closed, but there were two people sitting at the bar throwing back shots and chatting with a bartender. I was going about my business when one of them suddenly said to me, “We just got off a jury that convicted a guy of a double murder”- and I think their verdict was death. San Francisco’s Hall of Justice was only a couple of blocks away, and I assume they knew the restaurant’s owner.
I once sat on a jury that returned an ‘assault with a deadly weapon’ verdict, and I’ve had qualms about it ever since. For that reason alone, even if I supported the death penalty (never have) I would perjure myself during the jury selection, if it meant escaping sitting in judgement in a capital case.
raven
Everbody’s cryin mercy
and they don’t know the meaning of the word
Bill
@JPL:
Fairly normal. Appellate work is a bit of a specialty.
Plus it allows for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim.
singfoom
@gogol’s wife: You absolutely can disagree with someone without telling them to GFT. That said, you can also be aware that your language might be imprecise enough that it would cause upset to an entire group of people.
I’m sorry that people came at you on that thread, but there were plenty of us who didn’t even if we could see how people interpreted your words the way they were by those who decided to call you names.
ETA: Or at least there was me. I remember more than myself
dedc79
@Amir Khalid:
It falls upon the state (or as you put it society) to land on a punishment that is severe enough to satisfy the population that the state can be entrusted with its criminal justice role but not so severe that the state is merely catering to the mob.
I’m opposed to capital punishment for anyone. But i’m glad you weren’t entrusted to determine Eichmann’s sentence. Is there a crime out there that you think does warrant life in prison?
brantl
@Tree With Water:
That’s about revenge, plain and simple, there is no humanity in that.
AxelFoley
Can’t see how anyone can feel for this dude. He killed and permanently maimed innocent people.
Fuck him. Not upset by this at all.
gogol's wife
@Bobby Thomson:
Alice at #33 exemplifies the civil, non-personal way of expressing disagreement with someone.
Fair Economist
Lesson: if the jury selectors ask you if you oppose the death penalty, and you do, lie. Then when the sentencing comes, say you don’t think it’s appropriate *here*. That will hang the jury, and the prosecution will almost certainly accept the result life sentence.
gogol's wife
@AxelFoley:
I have little sympathy for him, but I don’t believe that the state should be killing people. Most civilized countries don’t.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: the jury — or a juror — could have chosen mercy.
The jury spent a great deal of time on this case, and went through an involved process of answering a long list of mitigating and aggravating factors during the penalty phase. By all outward indications they took their job seriously; for all I know they were thoughtful and conflicted people – not all of the questions were answered the same way by all of them. I can’t imagine being in their shoes, and I suppose this was very difficult. Calling them “cowards” when you don’t know them and were not part of their deliberations is cheap, IMO.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: One of America’s great philosophers.
Brachiator
Further harm?
This is harm enough. And the pain will continue for many victims and their families. The harm began with the bombing and will continue long after this verdict.
I oppose the death penalty, but more because of the potential for executing the innocent than preserving the life of the guilty.
But this one is tough.
Myiq2xu
Just think of it as a really-late term abortion.
Fair Economist
@Amir Khalid:
That’s simple: to prevent civil war. Any entity dispensing justice has to be accepted by society as a whole or you’ll have a mess. Exceptions can be made for emergency situations (self-defense, etc.) but they need to be defined by, again, society as a whole.
schrodinger's cat
@Myiq2xu: where u = 0 ?
Peale
Opposed to the death penalty, sure, but this isn’t the one I’d go on a hunger strike for. I have no objections to applying the sentence.
WarMunchkin
I cannot disagree with this statement enough. The process of criminal investigation, accusation, trial and sentencing is done by the state, not by the victims. The state is not executing Tsarnaev on the victim’s behalf; this execution is carried out on behalf of the People of the United States. Therefore, your opinions on whether he should be condemned or not are just as valid as a victim’s or a victim’s family member.
On the issue at hand – I oppose the death penalty, always. That said, some of the justifications as to why he shouldn’t receive the death penalty don’t make sense either. I frequently see an argument that life in prison is worse than death and therefore a more justifiable sentence – but, to me, that argument appears like a form of political jockeying taken when you don’t feel that opposing the death penalty is morally justifiable on its own, so we try to clothe a life sentence in the language of a harsher punishment to gain some sort of moral high ground.
The death penalty is barbaric, plain and simple. Whether efficient or not, cost effective or not, a bad symbol or not, it’s purely reducible to Hammurabi’s code. I don’t have an answer to the question of why we shouldn’t be barbaric, but I suppose that comes down to a question of values.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator:
And his death won’t change that.
different-church-lady
Not surprised by it, don’t agree with it, ain’t gonna make a big stink over it.
Tempted to wander over to DKos and find out how I’m letting humanity down by not making a big stink over it.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@JPL: Yes. Death penalty appeal trials are nothing like a regular trial and require a vastly different skill set and an insane attention to specific deadlines. I had a professor that did this, he was one of maybe a hundred in the entire country that do this sort of work.
the Conster
I’m against capital punishment only because our justice system is so compromised in favor of the well to do, and so unfairly administered. In a perfect world where only the most heinous guilty criminals are executed, I can’t really say I would be. There are plenty of people that are simply wastes of oxygen.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Exactly.
Aimai
@Gin & Tonic: this.
Brachiator
@Tree With Water:
It’s odd. Those convicted of murder rarely feel this way. They tend to be relieved when they get any reprieve or have the death penalty overturned.
@Germy Shoemangler:
We cannot presume that he necessarily thinks that he committed a crime or cares about those he helped kill.
boatboy_srq
@Bill: “One so young” is facing about 70 years in in a cell, probably in solitary, with a Presidential pardon/commutation the only way to see anything but that prison the rest of his life, as an alternative. This is one instance where I think the death penalty may be less inhumane. That said, though, we should get out of the business of offing “convicted felons” regardless: mainly because a death penalty conviction too often turns on shoddy investigation, false statements, planted evidence and bigoted prosecution.
Bill
@Peale:
I hear this all the time, and I have to say I don’t get it. Death sentence cases always involve horrific crimes, and almost always defendants who are clearly guilty. If you aren’t against the death penalty in those cases, when exactly are you?
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: @Aimai:
Yeah, I actually thought that was a great response by G&T.
This jury was picked because it was inclined to tread the path the prosecutors set. They did not disappoint. They may very well have carried out their duties rigorously.
I think Fair Economist at 79 is on to the longterm solution. Would have allowed a jury more in tune with the community in which the crime was carried out.
Keith G
Considering all the crimes and other related misdeeds that result in the death of a person in the United States, it is very statistically unlikely and unusual for someone to get the death penalty. That it’s a good thing, since it seems as if juries, and judges, and prosecutors, and cops can punish people who are innocent.
However, there are times when a person is sentenced to death and that sentence is carried out when I am very likely to say, “Yep, good deal.”
Bill
@boatboy_srq: I think it’s really easy to say “death is more humane” when it’s not your life that’s about to end. Yes, the kid was facing a horrific life as an alternative, but it was a life.
And of course that raises the question of whether we should be putting people in solitary forever.
Tree With Water
@brantl: I disagree. Of the two alternatives, a judgement of life behind bars is by definition life affirming. The revenge part is just the icing..
divF
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I don’t know if it is typical, but a friend of ours is an attorney in a practice that specializes exclusively in criminal defense at the
Federal appellate level (Ninth Circuit in San Francisco).
the Conster
@Bill:
You said “almost always”. Do you see the flaw in your argument?
tybee
@David Koch:
i am a bad person. i laughed at that.
Bill
@the Conster: So you only oppose the death penalty in cases where the person is innocent? That’s not really being against the death penalty, it’s being against convicting the innocent. Which is admirable but a different thing.
Aleta
Some info on the possible state of the Amtrack engineer
Chris
The most infamous terrorist of the seventies and eighties (Carlos the Jackal) is still alive. He’s locked in a cell in La Sante prison in Paris, same place he’s been for the last three decades. Forgotten by all at this point, trying not to go crazy on prison food, and desperately trying (and failing) to get back in the news with things like conversions to Islam and new manifestos that nobody reads because even the international terrorist community moved on long ago.
Always thought that was a far more fitting punishment especially for that kind of attention whore.
Amir Khalid
@dedc79:
No, not per se. I’ve said before, I think the Norwegian approach is pretty much spot on. Anders Breivik murdered 77 people and got a long incarceration, ten years, to be followed by periodic psychiatric evaluation. He’ll be let out only once the authorities are satisfied he’s no longer a danger — in his case, maybe never.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
But I did not advocate his death.
But your musings about “… if they can be prevented from doing further harm instead” devalues and ignores the harm already caused and the continuing pain this murderer continues to inflict. Keeping him alive won’t change that.
raven
@tybee: Off to the beach, operation or no!
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: I read an article about SuperMax the other day (can’t remember where), and it was interesting how different people handled the prospect of solitary confinement. Ted Kaczynski (sp — the so-called Unabomber) seemed pretty content; he was a loner all along and just occupied himself with reading. His SuperMax cage is probably more comfortable than his little cabin in the woods. Other terrorists who were less literate and more social had a much tougher time adjusting to the utter lack of human contact.
the Conster
@Bill:
I was pretty clear. Until there’s 0 chance of executing an innocent person, I’m opposed to capital punishment everywhere. But I wasn’t conflicted when Ted Bundy was executed. Fuck that guy.
Amir Khalid
@Tree With Water:
That’s where we differ. I don’t believe that vengeance should have any part in deciding the sentence for a crime.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator:
That was not my point at all. The harm he’s already done of course continues to have repercussions, and that will be true whether he lives or dies; I didn’t think it was necessary to spell that out.
By “further harm” I meant the possibility of fresh infliction of new harms. In that case, killing him would be a species of self-defense.
As it is now, they’ll keep him chained up in a cage, drag him in chains to a place of execution and kill him when he’s strapped down, threatening no one. Better to restrain him and prevent him from causing more harm than he’s already done.
Arclite
It seems like stacking the deck to use a “death qualified” jury. Cruel and unusual punishment? Fourteenth amendment violation?
First let me say I oppose the death penalty. The government should not be in the business of killing people, never mind all the innocent people on death row we’ve discovered.
Second, what this kid did was heinous, but I’m not convinced he was the mastermind/originator of this. I feel his brother’s influence, and without that, he’d never have done this. LiPwoP? Absolutely. Death? Seems like too much.
Elizabelle
@Arclite: Yes.
Poptartacus
Fuck him and his brother and that whore who spawned them
Too harsh?
dedc79
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, so what i’m hearing from you is that the only purpose you see for imprisonment is that it protects society from the criminal until such time as the criminal is no longer a danger to society. As you wrote above, if people aren’t suppose to commit acts of vengeance, why should the state do it for them, right?
So why not start with the psychiatric evaluations of Breivik tomorrow? Why wait ten years? Maybe he’s already no longer a threat to society, right? And then we’re just locking him up for no good reason.
And heck, how about if Eichmann had gotten up on the stand in Jerusalem and passed a lie detector test promising to never kill another jew? They shoulld’ve just let him go right there, right?
And if you’re answer is no, then maybe deep down you recognize the state does have a role to play in enforcing a collective vengeance – even if we hope it ends up being a more civilized one than the mob would extract.
Ruckus
@Tone in DC:
The families of the victims are.
No, they really aren’t. They are usually too close to the issue to make a good judgement. Not 100% of the time, I’ve heard families plea for reasonable justice, which the death penalty is not. But that’s why we have a system that is supposed to be fair. It isn’t in many cases and too many people think that killing is OK.
If it isn’t OK for you to kill your neighbor(or your neighbor to kill you) why is it OK for the state to kill in your name? We are in the 21st century, surly we can do better than barbarians, it’s not like we don’t have the prisons.
Bill
@the Conster: Right, so if – in your mind – the burden of proof has been met you don’t oppose the death penalty. (Ted Bundy)That’s not opposition to the penalty itself. That’s opposition to convicting the innocent.
I actually think reasonable minds can disagree on this issue. But I’m always surprised at the number of people who say: “I oppose the death penalty, but I’m ok with it in this case.”
Amir Khalid
@Poptartacus:
Yes.
askew
I am appalled at this outcome, not surprised but appalled. The death penalty is something barbaric societies do and we should be better than that. It’s been proven to be applied more to minority defendants. It also lets off the criminal too easy. Life in prison is much harder than a quick death. That said, at least we know this guy is guilty. I wonder how many innocent people have we executed.
And to be crass and bring politics into this, O’Malley released an excellent statement on this now:
One of the reasons I support him is his courage in his convictions. There are too many Democrats who are afraid of looking weak on crime so they change positions on the death penalty or just keep their mouth’s shut for fear of looking weak. O’Malley’s been vocal in his opposition to the death penalty for years, repealed it as Governor and commuted the remaining death row inmates to life in prison.
Tree With Water
@Amir Khalid: You claim to be capable of segragating thoughts or feelings of revenge when contemplating the fate of this, or other such, monsters. I can’t say the same. The thought of this pissant rotting away for decades in a prison cell seems a just fate to me, as well as being one I also believe to be crueler than death. And I’m OK with that..
Keith G
@askew:
Yes.
And why am I not surprised?
Ruckus
@Irony Abounds:
One doesn’t make the next one right. Yes there are a lot of innocent deaths. We should be working on all of them. And yes this will not be an innocent death. But it is still wrong and we can be against it. The world is not a zero sum game, we don’t have to play like it is.
askew
@Keith G:
Surprised that a Dem presidential candidate had the courage to be against the death penalty even in this case? I am. Ever since Dukakis, Dems running for president have been too chicken-shit to stick to their principles on this important issue.
Or surprised that I am talking about politics at a political blog?
Irony Abounds
@dedc79: Yes you can care, but I’m talking about prioritization of outrage. People get all worked up because this scumbag is getting offed by the state. I don’t see the same outrage concerning many many many other types of INNOCENT deaths.
gogol's wife
@askew:
That’s a good statement.
smintheus
I think he should have been condemned to spending his life reading all of David Brooks’ oeuvre and writing an exegesis of it. The cruelty is obvious, but what court could bring itself to say so?
Keith G
@askew: Yes that was crass and I was not surprised. My absolute preference for any and all candidates for political office on this day would be for them to say,
“While I have strong opinions on this matter I think today is a day for the families and citizens of Boston to reflect on what has happened and continue healing. It would be best for politicians not part of the Boston community to just keep their peace for a while. At a later date when appropriate I’ll be happy to give my opinion on the grave events of today.”
Irony Abounds
@askew: ” The death penalty is something barbaric societies do and we should be better than that. It’s been proven to be applied more to minority defendants. It also lets off the criminal too easy. Life in prison is much harder than a quick death.”
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that someone is opposed to the death penalty because it is barbaric, and yet champions life in prison because it is much harder than a quick death.
chopper
@Keith G:
so you think o’malley should have come out today and called the verdict a “grave event”? that’s still a strong opinion.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Actually Supermax almost sounds close to cruel and unusual punishment. But your mention of it is very apt.
A talk radio show talked about it earlier this week. Here is some of how they described it:
The episode of the talk show which discussed this can be found here:
http://www.kfiam640.com/onair/john-and-ken-37487/whatyoumissed-at-4pm-today-on-the-13590153/
Keith G
@Irony Abounds: That’s sorta ironic…
but actually disingenuous and/or hypocritical. It does, however, scratch a certain itch.
Ruckus
The Wonkette headline sort of says it all to me,
This won’t stop one terrorist. Not one. So it’s only revenge. And it will probably encourage some of them to act because being a martyr and glorifying their cause is a motivation in the first place.
Keith G
@chopper: There’s a difference and I figure you can understand that.
Although, I have no issue with crossing out the word ‘grave’ if some were to feel it was too loaded.
the Conster
@Bill:
There are people who I think forfeit their right to participate in humanity – even locked up – by virtue of the choices they make. Watching the victims and their families comment outside the courtroom now, and they feel like it’s justice. One mother said every day she watches both of her sons put their prosthetic limbs on, and she’s satisfied. I wouldn’t argue with them, and I’m not going to be demonstrating outside the death chamber when it’s Tsarnaev’s turn.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Killing terrorists may encourage other acts of terrorism. Imprisoning terrorists may encourage other acts of terrorism and a demand that those imprisoned be released.
Revenge fuels rage. Justice fuels rage.
You might as well flip a coin.
Amir Khalid
@dedc79:
I think doing some time in jail for serious crimes is appropriate. Whether you make Breivik do a minimum of ten years, or five, or twenty, that’s an arbitrary number. I don’t see exacting vengeance as its purpose. What’s important for public safety is that he not get another chance to kill people while he’s still of a mind to do it.
@Tree With Water:
I make no such claim for myself. If some bastard murdered my (hypothetical) wife, I’d no doubt want to see him drawn and quartered. Then I’d demand the use of a meat cleaver to do some more damage to his body parts. Then I’d want to take a dump on them. Then I’d try to think of something else I could do.
But as I’ve argued upthread, vengeance is a poor basis for deciding the punishment for a crime, for the individual and for society alike, and so is relishing the cruelty of a punishment. It is unbecoming. It makes the punishers no better than the punished.
Betty Cracker
@Irony Abounds: I think that’s a bogus argument factually and conceptually. It’s factually wrong because people on this blog express outrage about the death of innocent people by a variety of means quite frequently — see the posts about cops killing unarmed citizens, innocent children being gunned down by lunatics, deaths due to lack of healthcare, etc.
It’s wrong conceptually because the lack of expressed outrage about, say, contaminated food, doesn’t indicate a lack of concern. I don’t recall ever denouncing child molestation on this blog, but I can assure you I find it horrifying and outrageous.
@Irony Abounds: Now here we agree; that doesn’t make much sense to me either.
askew
@Irony Abounds:
It’s harder than a quick death but it also isn’t permanent. If they are later found innocent, they can be released. We can’t undo a killing. I think prison time vs. death is the difference between justice and vengeance. Vengeance is easier and less humane.
Omnes Omnibus
I am against the death penalty in any and all cases.
Bobby Thomson
@Ruckus: actually it is and we do. I wouldn’t waste an ounce of political capital on this murderer.
Tree With Water
@Irony Abounds: “Am I the only one who finds it ironic that someone is opposed to the death penalty because it is barbaric, and yet champions life in prison because it is much harder than a quick death”.
That’s me you’re talking about. I have always opposed the death penalty, for all the typical reasons. I also believe life behind bars to be a crueler fate than the swift release of death. Am I alone in that feeling (or belief, call it what you will)? Must I also denounce the death penalty as the more cruel and unusual punishment of the the two alternatives? I can’t do that, because I don’t believe it. But even if I did, what difference would it make? Likely not enough to avoid being called disingenuous, hypocritical, or a victim of unconscious irony.
Elie
I don’t believe that sentencing anyone to death is anything but punishment that just cannot fit the crime. One volley of gun shot, beheading or whatever, and it is over for a person who has caused unbelievable, immeasurable pain and suffering to perhaps thousands. Better in my view to have that person carry forward the weight of the consequence for a long, long and isolated life of privation from anything but the most rudimentary sensory stimulation, food and water just enough to avoid illness and injury and their choice of either a bible, the Qoran, or whaever book of religion or philosophy can help them think about eternity. Death is so easy, so quick and as I said, doesn’t fix anything. At least with life in prison, the person spends his/her time in a reality that has some chance of providing them with what eternity of nothingness is… they get to live it for hopefully long long lives in isolation.
eemom
@Irony Abounds:
This thread does touch on a lot of interesting questions, including the internal inconsistency of certain views of the matter.
I’ve never been an opponent of the death penalty where heinous crime was proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but I honestly don’t know where I stand on it anymore….except I do think that the risk of killing an innocent person in our infinitely fucked criminal “justice” system is enough reason to not have it at all.
I find particularly interesting the question of where justice intersects with vengeance, that Amir and others have touched on above. I think it’s fair to say that punishment of crime is not just about locking up people proven to be dangerous so they don’t do it again, though that’s the most important thing, so I guess I agree with @dedc79:
Where it gets really weird is this question of whether life in solitary confinement is worse than death, and who should make that judgment, and whether society should impose one rather the other because it IS determined to be worse.
eemom
One other thing: I find it strange that folks are so sure they know the answer to that question.
Ruckus
@Bobby Thomson:
But it isn’t a zero sum world. If it were we’d still be living in caves and dying of diseases that we can eradicate, just for a couple of examples. The world has changed dramatically in my 65 yrs, not all for the better for sure but we don’t have to live in poverty just because someone else lives a life of depraved excess and we don’t have to have the state kill in our names. The countries that still have the death penalty are some of the most backwards in the world and we don’t need to be and shouldn’t be among them.
If this were a zero sum life then why the fuck do we bother at all? Fuck it, kill everyone around you and take their food and oxygen. But we don’t have to do that. No one had to die so you could be born, you don’t have to die when someone else is. It isn’t zero sum, you may think it is but you are wrong and it’s that kind of thinking that keeps us from solving problems, like innocent deaths, ending the death penalty, etc.
Bobby Thomson
@Ruckus: not zero sum in that sense. Zero sum in the sense that you can push only so many politically unpalatable solutions at once.
Ruckus
@Bobby Thomson:
Why, because no one has ever tried?
Bobby Thomson
@eemom: there are four goals of criminal justice: prevention (keep the criminal from committing future crimes, by incarceration or execution), deterrence (keep other criminals from committing similar crimes), retribution, and rehabilitation. Execution satisfies two of those goals completely, fails completely at another, and has mixed results on the other one.
Tree With Water
@eemom: Spoken like some one who has never been caged in a prison cell, even for a couple of hours.
the Conster
The comments from the victims shown on the local stations basically mirror everything being said here – the sentence won’t fix anything, no one’s happy about the death penalty but that was an option that was available and the guidelines were satisfied and well argued, no one’s cheering for vengeance, much feeling about being conflicted about the death penalty especially here where most people are overwhelmingly against it, but that everything was done under the best the justice system had to offer and everyone can go home feeling like justice wasn’t denied. The sentence turned on whether the jury felt like there was any remorse shown, and they were unanimously in agreement it wasn’t. Sadness, confliction with the morality, satisfaction with the system that the verdict and sentence was rendered correctly, and a sense of closure.
Bobby Thomson
@Ruckus: of course someone has. He’s called Mike Dukakis.
eemom
@Tree With Water:
Then why do some who have, for much longer than a few hours, plea bargain to avoid the death penalty?
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
get da phuq outta here.
he helped MURDER PEOPLE, including a child.
he helped permanently maim many others.
won’t blink twice when they put the needle in him.
Mike in NC
@rikyrah: Nailed it.
the Conster
@rikyrah:
The jurors deciding his fate said that it turned on his lack of remorse. All of his victims testified. He gave them all a life sentence. He could have helped himself by demonstrating any sense of humanity or remorse, but chose not to. He chose poorly. Fuck him.
Tree With Water
@eemom: I assume because it beats the alternative in their minds. A caged existence seems preferable to a nice, long refreshing nap..
Bobby Thomson
@the Conster: which puts paid to the notion that he would spend a life sentence in regret.
Elizabelle
@the Conster: @Bobby Thomson:
Or it could just say that he’s an immature teenager. That he’s fatalistic, or that he does not want to play the role assigned to him.
Do you see a great criminal mind at work here? I do not.
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson:
How does restitution fit in this scheme?
the Conster
@Elizabelle:
No one involved in his trial was there to assess anything other than what was put in front of them, with the huge volume of stipulated evidence showing his actions and thought processes and willfull depravity. They did their job given the task set before them. They weren’t asked to be amateur psychologists. I won’t criticize them. I’ve sat on a jury, and it’s really really hard.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Cervantes:
I don’t think restitution has ever really had much of a place in US/British law. Under, say, sharia law (gasp!) someone who’s convicted of murder or manslaughter can be ordered to pay restitution to the victim’s family. We don’t really seem to have that concept, though — fines etc seem aimed more at punishment than restitution.
the Conster
@Elizabelle:
I’m sure his counsel begged him to show some remorse. I’m sure he was told over and over again what the consequences were. He’s young, but he’s not a child. He was mature enough to put a bomb at the feet, literally, of an 8 year old boy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Not true.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
I see a rather crummy criminal mind at work. (If “at work” can be used to describe this situation.)
Bill
@the Conster: I understand you position. And it touches on some of the reasons why I think reasonable minds can disagree. But it’s not the position of someone opposed to the death penalty.
different-church-lady
@the Conster:
All but four of them.
the Conster
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
A good friend of mine works in the field of restorative justice. It’s not something done very much – programs are few and far between and there is a lot of work involved to get the jurisdictional administrators to buy into the concept. Mostly it involves juveniles.
the Conster
@different-church-lady:
exactly. I thought by saying testify, I didn’t need to qualify that they were the living ones. The ones that couldn’t testify are why he’s going to die sooner than later.
Elizabelle
@the Conster: I’ve had the honor of being on a jury too.
More people should do it. It’s fascinating.
I will never forget Martin Richard’s little face. Handsome little guy, with wonderful family.
Would be just as well if people were allowed to forget Dzhokhar’s. Or if he were allowed to atone, or eventually comprehend the damage he did.
Bill
A side note on this case. Of the 80 people given a federal death sentence since 1988, three have been executed. McVeigh (in 2001) is probably the most famous. The most recent was in 2003.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
I did it once because I thought it would be fascinating.
By the end of the week I wanted to convict every single person in that courtroom, including the bailiffs.
Steve
Wow. Northeast liberals turns conservative when terror is visited upon them.
different-church-lady
@Steve: Kindly read the thread, and then visit back.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve: You continue to be an idiot.
the Conster
@Elizabelle:
Martin Richard was killed, his sister had her leg blown off, his mother had brain damage and was partially blinded, the father was made partially deaf, and had to make Sophie’s choice between his dying bleeding out son and retrieving his daughter’s limb before she bled out. They were against the death penalty. I was on that team – if anyone who suffered that much believed in mercy, then I’m on that team. I still won’t criticize the sentence though, because other victims who have gone through a similar hell are satisfied that justice was done. Shoes, walk, other people etc. etc. Nothing is simple.
Tree With Water
@different-church-lady: While waiting to be interviewed to sit on the only jury I’ve ever been on, I heard an ex-cop pointedly asked by the public defender, “Are you inclined to believe a defendant guilty simply because they’ve been arrested?”, and the cop freely admitting that yes indeed he did. He was dismissed. A hooker wearing at least a three foot rainbow colored Marge Simpson style wig and chewing a pack of gum was also asked by the judge, “Miss So-and-so, were you in this courtroom last week as a defendant?”, to which she answered “yes”, which prompted him to thank her before dismissing her from the pool. It was pretty darn entertaining from the peanut gallery..
the Conster
@Steve:
Exactly the opposite, but thanks for playing. hahaha not really.
Ruckus
@the Conster:
Nothing is simple.
A huge point. One that needs to be made often. That’s how our media sees things, simple, a headline, a couple hundred words or less, move on to the next issue. So many people try to simplify everything, to put it on a 4th grade level. And that demeans 4th graders. Life isn’t simple, never was, never will be. But trying to simplify it means that so much is missed and kicked under the bed that reality becomes meaningless. And it makes it easy to never change, to never get better, to never become part of a world, a society, rather than a restricted neighborhood.
Bill
@Tree With Water: I’ve wanted to serve on a jury for ages. A few years ago I finally got my summons. To my surprise, my name was called almost as soon as I reported. As we lined up to have the bailiff take us to the court room, I was disappointed to find out it was criminal case. Having been an ADA I was definitely getting dismissed for cause. The situation got worse. We were led to the court room of a judge who was a former partner of mine, and when I looked over at counsel table I found that the defendant was represented by one of my best friends.
I did not get to serve.
tybee
@raven:
have any open deep wounds? surgery or something? beware of the mycobacterium marinem this time of year.
several years ago, whats’er’name had a go round with that after being spiked deeply in a finger by a large and lively sheepshead.
but well beyond that, the important thing is to catch fish. did i see that you were gonna go offshore on a party boat? or are you gonna fling it off the beach?
the Conster
@Ruckus:
Simple is for simpletons. I really get my back up with people who take a hard and fast position about principles, then get all triumphalist about it. I always say purity is for losers, because people who are hard and fast about some principle generally have never been in a position where they have to compromise around it. Everything in this world is on a spectrum, and every day requires an understanding of nuance and context. News is not only not news, it’s misinformation because they’ve decided to ignore context because that requires explaining, clearly, nuance. There are hundreds of shades of grey, and describing the difference between the shades of grey requires great skill.
tybee
IIRC, it is a great cost savings to imprison someone for life rather than execute them.
don’t spend an extra dime on him.
Cervantes
@the Conster:
So glad you said that because I was wondering and now can ask again: In your eyes, is “purity” the opposite of “anything goes”? If so, what’s in between?
Elie
The discussion here has made me think about my views on life imprisonment and like eemom and several others point out, even though I donot advocate for state capital punishment, not sure how a lifelong imprisonment with no social contacts squares with a moral alternative.
I just plain don’t know. I acknowledge the real problem here, but I do not know how to resolve it. I do not believe in state sponsored torture or capital punishment, but what are we to do with the results of these angry and diseased spirits and what they have done to our loved ones and other innocents? We have no capability of making them feel remorse, or truly see the impacts of their crimes… Neither can we just imprison them in some normal situation where they are withheld from the community for safety’s sake, but otherwise endure no real consequence for their horrible crimes.
I have to believe is that the nature and burden of being in human society, makes it impossible to fully reconcile every contradiction and mystery of our moral universe. In other words, we cannot reconcile it or make logical sense of these things. Our best is to be as humanistic as possible while acknowledging that some punishment or restitution is necessary and that some crimes are especially heinous, requiring a more intense statement by our society. The limits of that get hazy since the reality is that many of the people who do these things may be unable to have remorse or empathy for their victims… their brains just don’t work that way due to trauma, genetics or whatever. I have to ask myself whether such a person would actually suffer from long imprisonment other than from boredom — that spiritual transformation would really be out of reach. In that case, is it actually more humane to execute them? Is there some other form of restitution — organ donation, being guinea pigs for testing new treatments, etc – or volunteers for extremely hazardous situations – that might work? (just throwing this out there)
Personally, I cried when I heard the sentence. I know that none of those loved ones can ever come back and that while there is a certain “justice” to taking this young man’s life, it is all totally unsatisfying. Having bourne witness to death, I truly see it as both a physical and spiritual transit, very similar to birth. I am ignorant of how to make sense of it in this context. I am not even sure that I am against it all the time, except that so frequently, the wrong person is charged.
Sorry. I had a lot of words without any resolution…
Cervantes
@Elie:
From a practical perspective: life imprisonment, even in solitary confinement, can be revisited if exculpatory evidence emerges at some point; whereas an execution cannot.
(That said, we should recognize that death sentences may not be carried out for years, and even decades.)
Thanks for your “lot of words,” and never mind resolution.
the Conster
@Cervantes:
What’s in between purity and anything goes? Whatever is possible given context, situational ethics, historical legacy, geographical constraints, cultural norms, personal circumstances, political possibilities, current events, natural forces and every other limitation that exerts itself on someone’s decision making. That’s actually a ridiculous question.
eemom
@Elie:
@Cervantes:
Exactly. Lot of words with no resolution is the only reaction that makes sense to me.
Elie
@Cervantes:
…and you are right… with life imprisonment, at least if there is a mistake, there is a chance to correct it. Execution is final.
Cervantes
@the Conster:
So true.
Ah, well, perhaps it is — but the other day you wrote this:
You were arguing that no tactic is too low or underhanded — calling him “fat” seemed to you the height of political effectiveness — and when others asked about this, offering alternative (and possibly more subtle) attacks, you dismissed that kind of thinking as “purity” — which dismissal I found, well, ridiculous.
So here we are, ridiculous together!
I’m off. Have a great evening.
the Conster
@Cervantes:
I also explained that calling Chris Christie a fat fuck when he actually is a fat fuck is not underhanded, it’s a fact, and everyone on that thread said OH NOES YOU CALLED HIM FAT THAT’S FAT SHAMING ELEVENTY!!ONE!!!!, when the whole fucking point of the the thread was Cole’s story about him eating 80plusThousands of dollars of concession food with other people’s money after cutting the SNAP program. That is not anything goes – Chris Christie is for reals a shameless loudmouth bully and fat, but, if fat shaming him works, I’m all for it, because he should be shamed by something, because calling him a loudmouth bully only makes him proud. Yes, I’m all for fat shaming Chris Christie. I guess that makes me a terrible person, and I’m OK with that.
TriassicSands
@Tone in DC:
“The families of victims are.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Many families may be interested in nothing more than revenge. The law needs to be based on things other than raw emotion. Emotion can cause more senseless violence. It’s understandable if victims (who live) and the survivors of victims may want to inflict maximum suffering on violent criminals, but the law should be based on hard facts and doing what is best for society. Protecting society from a violent criminal makes sense, but those of us who oppose the death penalty, believe that state sanctioned killing serves to justify violence and cheapen life. Allowing victims to influence penalties just puts another potential source of injustice into the process. What if the convicted person is an African American and the victims/survivors are racists? The law should be just and evenhanded and that requires a measure of dispassion.
trnc
@askew:
Yeah, I can get behind what O’Malley said. How do arguments in support of the death penalty the fact that innocent people have been executed and others have spent time on death row before being exonerated?
“It brings closure to the family.” As O’Malley points out, the appeals process practically guarantees a lot more pain. Some would eliminate the appeals process. Good luck making that argument to someone who has been exonerated or, worse, to a family member of someone who was exonerated posthumously. Also, it’s the state’s responsibility to keep us reasonably safe. Life in prison accomplishes that, maybe more than execution since it doesn’t create much of a martyr.
“It’s actually more humane than making them rot in a cell for decades.” Again, not the state’s responsibility to split that hair. And again, the exonerated would probably disagree with that “mercy”.
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: Just off hand, you aren’t against the death penalty. You just limit your support for it to more than some jurisdictions do. I oppose it for both moral and practical reasons. But then, I think there are a few lines beyond which one should not go. YMMV.
EconWatcher
@Elizabelle:
I’ve been a death penalty opponent for most of my life, and volunteered as a lawyer to work on two death penalty habeas petitions. But I can’t agree with your insults of the jury, not at all.
It is very possible for a decent person to believe in good faith that some crimes are so heinous that only the dp is appropriate justice. In fact, although support is weakening, that still describes most of our fellow citizens.
What on earth is cowardly about the jury’s decision? You weren’t there, and neither was I, but in my experience most juries are conscientious and really struggle with coming to what they think is the right and just result. I have seen some ugly exceptions (for example, in capital cases in Texas), but they are not the rule.
Elizabelle
@Elie: That’s a wonderful comment.
Elizabelle
@EconWatcher: You, and others, have made the good point that pushing for the death penalty was a prosecutorial decision, and they bear the blame and shame for that.
I still think the death penalty was cowardly, and that justice would be better served by a life sentence.
My issue with the jury: (1) they are a “death qualified” panel, in a state/community that overwhelmingly does not favor capital punishment; in fact, the death penalty no longer exists in Massachusetts law. Therefore, they are not actually representative of the community, which might have gone with a non-death sentence.
(2) We have seen too many cases recently of qualified jurors traipsing happily down the path the prosecution sets for them, and not considering the humanity — and it exists, even if in reduced quantity — of the victim or perp. I am speaking of the gun-appreciating and rule of law-endorsing (even bizarre castle doctrine Florida law) jury that found Mr. George Zimmerman not culpable for his pursuit and shooting of an unarmed teenager, the late Mr. Trayvon Martin. I hope that jury chokes every time they hear of Zimmerman’s latest exploits. That was not justice, but one would say the jury performed their job.
And we’ve seen the horrible decision out of St. Louis on the Michael Brown shooting by cop. That prosecutor knowingly allowed fraudulent testimony to be included for consideration. The police destroyed a dead young black man, two or three times. Physically, character assassination, no respect for the community or family in the aftermath. (Happily, several people lost their jobs or prosecuting scope after that one.)
A lot of you have made the excellent point of how stringent and appalling a convict’s experience in SuperMax detention is. Some have wondered if death might be swifter and more humane. I hope that, in decades to come, SuperMax conditions of confinement will change, because those are human beings incarcerated, and what does it do to our soul to allow decade upon decade of such awful treatment? Americans do become more humane, in many respects, in the long run, and such a brutal existence may become a point of shame down the road.
We can hope for a change in terms in future years, but not for a convict who has been executed, “in our name.”
The Tsarnaev brothers planned and carried out a terrible, shattering crime. The older, who was likely the leader (Tamerlin, aka Betty Cracker’s “Speedbump”) eluded legal justice through death. The younger was nineteen years old at the time of the bombing, and seems kind of immature, with all his actions and inactions during the trial phase. That is a huge factor for me.
You can jump all over me for this, but I was not impressed by all the “Boston Strong” hoopla, because I found it kind of jingoistic, and I suspect it might have poisoned the community. Quiet courage is more impressive. Run a marathon every day of the week, if you want. Show up for public life, in public sites. Banners and motto not required.
The DC area underwent a more pervasive threat, years ago, with the Beltway Sniper shootings. That was weeks long. People were shot and killed at gas stations, in parking lots of home improvement stores, exiting restaurants. People going about their business, with no idea of where the sniper might shoot next. The kill zone ranged from Maryland to DC to Richmond VA’s environs.
No one was trumpeting “Beltway Brave” after that.
In that case, the lead sniper, John Muhammed was executed. (FWIW, I would have given him a life sentence, but was not called to jury duty.)
So yeah, I think in the long run, the death penalty was cowardly, and that this jury may have done what the prosecution selected them for, but it was not the right decision, or just.
Now tell me again to GFM. (Not you, personally, EconWatcher. You’re always astute and courteous in commenting.)
(PS: another whole issue is the cable news “trial of the week — aka trial of the ratings period” drama. “Gone Girl” skewered this one pretty well. Does Scott Peterson deserve to be on death row in California? Why so many attempts to obtain the death penalty (ultimately futile) for Jody Arias, who killed one boyfriend, if memory serves, other than to appease Nancy Grace and her fellow howler monkeys? I wonder if some of that happened with Dz. Tsarnaev. At minimum, he’s going to prison for a long spell, folks. He cannot bomb you again.)
Elizabelle
Hmmmm. From the Washington Post today:
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
Not in the law since 1984; not actually inflicted since 1947.
Between 1630 and 1947 we executed about 350 people, of whom about 25 for witchcraft.
aimai
@Elizabelle: I’m a member of the Boston Community, I’m anti death penalty, I’ve sat on (regular) Juries, and I still strongly take exception to the intemperate tone of your remarks. The Jury was not cowardly and this had nothing to do with any attempt by the then governor or his team to rally people after the bombing. It has nothing to do with what you did, or did not, experience in DC during the sniper shootings. Because its not all about you or what you think. You are not better, or worse, or braver, or less brave than anyone here in Boston because of your brush with the DC sniper. You weren’t involved in the cleanup of that string of shootings and what you felt or didn’t feel was not clearerly what other people in the DC area felt or didn’t feel. Sorry if you didn’t like some stupid slogan that was used to help raise money for the people who were injured. Sorry if you think that the people, like my neighbors, the newlyweds who each lost one leg to the blast, didn’t need any kind of social or economic support as they rebuilt their house with a ramp to get up to the front and began to deal with their amputations.
Christ, get off the fucking soapbox. There’s lots wrong with our entire system of Justice, from the police to the prisons to the death penalty. The people of Boston and the Jury are not the worst of it. They are as caught in the toils of it as anyone. Take out your rage on the Feds and please stop telling everyone here how much better, more humane, and more noble you are than everyone else in the Metro Boston area.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
But why?
What fear governed them?
Or what brave path did they not follow?
Elizabelle
@Cervantes: I personally think it is braver to give such a young convict the possibility of life and atonement. That is the whole of my argument. I don’t care for the Fed overreach. The jury delivered what the prosecutors asked for. That is as much as I will say.
Is it fear or vengeance that drives the death penalty for a 19 year old, who is not going to live in free society again?
PS: thanks for the info about the Mass. death penalty, and the witches.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
When you say that’s the whole of your argument, I have to infer that you think the jurors’ cowardice is self-evident. I agree with you that the jury made a mistake. I still don’t see where cowardice or bravery came into it. If you were to say “more generous” or some such, I could see the point, but “braver”?
Are you arguing that the jurors chose to kill him because they are afraid of what he might yet do with his life? Is that the cowardice you perceive?
Don’t feel pressure to respond. I gather you have written a lot already. If you feel you have answered these questions above, then so be it. Thanks.
Elizabelle
@Cervantes: Hey, Cervantes.
I will go with you re the jury came to the wrong penalty. Cowardice, to me, was in not straying from the path they were expected to follow. Were, in fact, specially selected to follow. If a juror was not inclined to impose the death penalty and said so in voir dire, that juror was not on the Tsarnaev jury panel.
It may well be gratuitous and ungracious gesture to call the jury cowards.
Shall thank you for providing me a hand off the ledge (and others have tried! — merci!), but I still think a death penalty was the wrong verdict, whether driven by the prosecution or not.
Shall we agree the jury arrived, courageously, efficiently, and with all deliberation, at what is probably an unjust and also possibly an unenforceable penalty?
A death penalty which isn’t that much different from what terrorists themselves would have meted out, albeit they might have relished in carrying it out more rapidly, violently, and videographically?
Sad to have upset aimai, but when the government tells one to jump, the best response is not always “how high? And how good of you to have provided me that inch in which to maneuver.”