A U.S. jury on Friday sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for helping carry out the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded 264 others at the world-renowned race, taking 15 hours to reach a decision.
The federal jury chose death by lethal injection for Tsarnaev, 21, over its only other option: life in prison without possibility of release.
The same panel last month found the ethnic Chechen guilty of placing a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the race's crowded finish line on April 15, 2013, as well as fatally shooting a policeman. The bombing was one of the highest-profile attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
Tsarnaev, dressed in a dark sport coat and light-colored shirt stood quietly in court as the sentence was read, maintaining the stoic demeanor he had throughout most of the trial.
As a rule I am against the death penalty, and think in this case it might have been a better punishment for Tsarnaev to have spent the rest of his life behind bars forever regretting the choices he made that night on April 15, 2013.
However I also understand the desire to see this man share the same fate that he inflicted on those three innocent victims. Not to mention paying for the mutilations of so many others.
Of course Tsarnaev will die relatively peacefully from a lethal injection, the death of his victims, and the suffering of those who survived, was anything but peaceful.
Thoughts?
Yeah, no sympathy for this guy.
ReplyDeleteI am saddened. We say killing is wrong, and then kill people. Life in prison without parole would be more fitting, and in my mind, more honorable for the victims.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that killing is wrong, some people are justifiably killed by those whom they seek to harm.
DeleteI am a pacifist. War is wrong. The death penalty is state sponsored killing, which does NOT deter anyone else, and the NRA should be tried for treason.
DeleteI agree that we should not kill anyone at tax payer expense or otherwise. This is a kid, there's still time to rehabilitate him. Isn't that part of our justice system, or have we sunk to a purely 'eye for an eye' vengeance mode?
DeleteA kid? Rehabilitate? Jesus 11:22 get a clue.
DeleteSometimes lib naivete just makes me shake my head.
I recommend death by firing squad.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, if I were to be killed, I would choose firing squad over injection any day of the week. It is a more noble death than being strapped to a gurney for a half hour with needles sticking out of you. Pretty damn quick too.
DeleteLet Kim Jong Un do it; he uses anti-aircraft weapons to do the job from all reports.
DeleteGreta. Let's return to the thrilling times of yesteryear...firing squads? What's next..back to lynching in the public square? Guillotine? How does that make us better than these two guys?
DeleteNo sympathy for this guy - he reaped what he sowed.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm still anti-death penalty.
"an eye for an eye & a tooth for a tooth".
DeleteClearly you're not.
Deletea little heads up on the bloody gore would've been in order, thanks
ReplyDeleteHey, watch out. Blood.
DeleteThat's one of the very mild carnage photos. Google "Boston Bombing graphic" and a lot worse ones will come up.
DeleteConsidering that there is a shortage of the sort of drugs they need to kill, this wretched kid may end up spending the rest of his life behind bars instead.
ReplyDeleteMaddow has been covering this issue regarding the shortage of execution drugs - the European producers refuse to supply it anymore out.
M. from MD
Which is why Utah is now doing firing squads and OK has cooked up their own unproven execution soup to try out on the next killer they convict.
DeleteHe is going to the Super Max in Florence Colorado. Total isolation. The prison is on permanent lock-down.
ReplyDeleteMr. Tsarnaev is screwed either way. His life is over. I feel sorry for him actually. Not saying that he should walk, but his situation is a sad one. I think his brother convinced him to do something that he might not have done otherwise.
No, he will be going to the federal death row in Terra Haute. The same place McVey was executed at.
DeleteIs he, thought that if he received the death penalty he was headed to Indiana? Not that it matters either way. He probably was influenced to a large degree by his brother, but he is also a grown educated young man that is responsible for his own actions. I have only sympathy for the victims.
DeleteAccording to Socrates, it is worse for a human being to do evil than to suffer evil. I believe that. I am also against the death penalty.
DeleteThat said, I do feel pity--not sympathy--for this young man. He threw his own life away (at such a young age!) in an act of utterly senseless, horrific violence, and devastated the lives of innocent victims.
They get my deepest sympathy. He should be locked up for the rest of his life.
Good riddance to bad rubbish!
ReplyDeleteNo sympathy for the guy either, but dying's easy when you're 21. The truly crueler thing, and more punishing, is to put him in a cage for 50 years to never taste freedom again, and fear, every day, his young ass getting torn up by the other animals in there.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, this guy deserves to be forgotten--If it were up to me, I'd just toss him in an oubliette, drop some food and water in there, and when he stops making noise, brick it up.
DeleteThat said, this guy deserves no effort from me, so I really don't care whether he's killed or not.
I don't believe in killing. For me it's wrong to take a life like this. But then I also believe many, if not most prisoners in the US are in jail for way too long and that life sentences should be few and far between.
ReplyDeleteThis x1000.
DeleteAgreed. My heart aches for this world.
DeleteI have a 19 year old nephew in the U.S. Army. Although I'm proud of his service, I struggle with the mission. Basically, he is being trained to kill the enemy. He is a beautiful young man that should not be spending his youth learning to kill. Unless provoked.
DeleteWas this young man provoked?
I'm torn, because I'm usually against the death penalty, but this case and several other recent cases have tested my resolve. I'm with those who feel as I do, that spending our tax dollars for years and years isn't going to change this monster. Look in our own back yard, has Charlie Manson shown an iota of remorse?
ReplyDeleteI think he should get death, screw the appeals process, and kill him. Lethal injection is too good, because he knows when it's coming and it's humanely done. I want him to feel pain and realize what he did to innocent victims, just for kicks.
I saw Sister Prejean (Not that one, the one portrayed in Dead man Walking), but where the hell were the hoards of angry pro-lifers? Crickets Chirping. But a woman decides to terminate a pregnancy, and they're out like roaches and rats in Chic Fil A kitchens at night time. No bullets, no firing squads and no lethal injections. Tie him to a train track, or open the door of a plane and shove him off with no parachute.
DeleteThe rabid pro-lifers are also the largest block of support for the death penalty, which well illustrates that they have no moral values that they cannot dispense with when those values get in the way of their basest desires. It's as simple as declaring that their invisible friend would want them to [kill this guy, kill those guys, lie, cheat, steal elections], so they grant themselves a moral pass to do whatever they want - for him.
So how are you better than he is, that you want him to die slowly and painfully? Seriously, what if in 10 years it was shown that he was innocent? Would you care? Or just be glad that a person you think is evil was killed by society? Murder is murder. It's either wrong or not. And if wrong, then a state doing it is no better than George Zimmerman doing it. What's the purpose? The people from the race are either getting on with their lives, or they are gone.
DeleteBeing for or against the death penalty is a bit like being pregnant. Either you are, or you aren't. The circumstances don't change that. It's easy to stand for something when not challenged...
DeleteI'm the o.p. I said "I'm torn on this one". If he does get the death penalty, he deserves a slow, painful death. There are victims out there who live in pain every day for the rest of their lives, chronic, constant pain, some lost limbs. What did they do to deserve this? What if, in ten years, we find out he's innocent? Really? The trial is over, he's guilty.
DeleteI'm the o.p. I said "I'm torn on this one". If he does get the death penalty, he deserves a slow, painful death. There are victims out there who live in pain every day for the rest of their lives, chronic, constant pain, some lost limbs. What did they do to deserve this? What if, in ten years, we find out he's innocent? Really? The trial is over, he's guilty.
DeleteLet's hope the appeals process takes YEARS, and he has to either be a member of the general population (ouch) or in solitary.
ReplyDeleteDeath is too easy for someone who thinks his sky pilot will give him 72 virgins for being a murderer.
Chop a leg off mid-thigh and let him bleed to death. Let him suffer like his victims did.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure life in the Super Max isn't worse than death. There is no meaning to be had. Many/most?/all? go crazy from the isolation. And it would a lot less expensive to just give him life.
ReplyDeleteI think SuperMax prisons are cruel and unusual punishment. Marion JOnes, who was isolated for her own protection - she says it was brutal. I believe it's technical term is a "crazy-maker." literally.
http://solitarywatch.com/2014/12/03/fates-worse-than-death/
DeleteI have mixed feelings. I really wondered if this would happen because the last time a Massachusetts jury recommended death was in 1946. I think Massachusetts never got over the whole Sacco and Vanzetti debacle. And sentencing some crackpot who kills for a cause is counterproductive, because it makes martyrs out of them, like Joe Hill or Kevin Barry.
ReplyDeleteBut blowing up random people at finish of the Boston Marathon, on the original Patriot's Day, was such an over-the-top and in-your-face horror to everybody in Massachusetts that I'm not surprised now this happened.
As far as the actual execution itself, just get it over with, and ignore the fools who childlishly babble about "Ya know what, they outta do this!" and describe some Rube Goldberg form of execution. I think that if the people of a society decide that the worst of the worst among us can face death, so be it. In World War II we sent our best young men off to face the chance of death to protect us, so I don't see why a society can't send the worst of the worst off to face death. Back in 1912 the state of Tennessee executed two white men who had lynched a black farmer and his daughters, and I can't help wondering that if that happened more often in our history, we would have been better off.
Whatever, it's over. Pay him no more attention.
Tom, in FL
I don't think he has any remorse for killing and maiming those people. None.
ReplyDeleteI am not particularly pro death penalty, but with the evidence, he should have been taken behind the courthouse and shot.
ReplyDeleteHe will go to supermax and be held there in isolation during the appeals process, he will only be transferred to Terre Haute once a date has been set, much like Timothy McVeigh
There are 30 some prisoners in Terre Haute death row without execution dates, this guy will join them. Mcvey had to be transferred there because a federal death row did not exist at the time.
DeleteCorrection, 50 some death row prisoners are there.
DeleteI am a bit conflicted. The death sentence does make him a martyr. And I do not think that taking life is okay. But the tiny space to which he would be confined for the rest of his life amounts to torture.
ReplyDeleteI agree - but you said it much better.
DeleteThe death penalty is a little like freedom of speech in that the most extreme cases usually show just how true your convictions are.
ReplyDeleteTsarnaev shouldn't be killed by the state not because HE deserves better, but because WE do.
What really is the difference...death or life in prison.
ReplyDeleteHis days are numbered.
I'm OK with it.
ReplyDeleteI think in the end it will be cheaper to execute him even with the costs of all the appeals (if there are any) than to pay to house, clothe, feed and guard him for the rest of his life.
Who knows? He may not even live long enough in prison to be executed. I hope they have a lot of fun with the pretty new fresh fish first.
Unfortunately his lawyer will keep this in appeals for at least a decade before we actually kill him. How awful is that knowing that you will eventually get the needle but have to wait of a lawyer appealing appeals that will never be appealed? Dude is a dead man walking no matter, it's just how long it is before we off him, and he deserves it, but not he suffering that a lengthy appeal process will bring about.
ReplyDeleteHe does not deserve it any more than his victims did. State sanctioned murder is still murder, and unless YOU could see yourself shooting the drugs in and watching him suffocate, you cannot support the murder of people. Of course, since Massachusetts has no death penalty, and since states that still have this barbaric, evil penalty are having trouble even finding drugs to kill people with, I doubt this guy will ever die at the hands of the US Government.
DeleteWhat would Jesus do? He'd say, "Oh, an eye for an eye is so Old Testament! Let's turn the other cheek." But so many of the gung-ho death penalty advocates call themselves Christian. Hypocrisy much?
ReplyDeleteI am NOT Christian, and I would let him live the rest of his days in confinement rather than kill him. The death penalty is barbaric; it debases a society. Most other civilized countries realize this.
The appeals process will put the victims through even more grief and will cost plenty more than maintaining him in a cell for his remaining days. Living in confinement with the knowledge of what he has done would be a just punishment.
Bravo. The victims themselves and the families were NOT for killing him either. This is barbaric and makes us as a nation no less evil than the men who planned this. But what can you expect from a country that idolizes guns and war; that thinks a three year old with an UZI is cute; that refuses to hold parents responsible for murder when someone is murdered with THEIR gun in their own houses or cars or local Walmarts? We are what Arianna Huffington predicted not too many years ago...a Third World nation. We are no longer leading anyone..we are following the kingdoms and the fascist states into a situation where the poor will rise up and start fighting back. It is coming. The GOP will light the fuse, and we will all get burned.
DeleteI would not have chosen the death penalty either. I fear that it will make him a hero to some segments of the population and villains of everyone else. Tsaranev is no hero. He and his brother chose to execute people and to make mayhem of an annual happy occasion for the people of Boston. He belongs in prison, all alone and forgotten, for the rest of his natural life.
DeleteBeaglemom