Sunday, May 17, 2015

Perspective on Tsarnaev's Sentence



Massachusetts eschews the death penalty. In it's infinite wisdom, the Justice Department took the decision out of the hands of the state and made it a federal case.  Perhaps they wanted to make a glaring example or set a precedent. All home-grown, would be terrorists (Tsarnaev is an American citizen) take heed...don't f*** with us, or else! A poll revealed that less than a third of the citizens of Massachusetts supported the death penalty decision.
My friend Mr Humble has such sound logic, I see the whole situation more clearly. I give you the benefit of his words.

Mr Humble says:
Giving him the death sentence is a dumb decision. First, it will take years if not decades to execute him. During that time the state will pay for countless appeals and lawyer fees. It will probably cost upwards of 10,000,000 to try to execute. (Yes that is Ten Million).
Second, during this time the victims will be constantly updated on the appeals, the rulings etc etc. They will never have the chance to move on. Had he been given life without parole he would get one appeal and that would be it. He would then spend the rest of his life in a small cell with no outside contact and kept in the cell 23 of 24 hours a day. That would be what he would have to look forward to for the next 50 years. Does anyone really think the death penalty is worse than that? It is the victims who will suffer by this decision not the defendant. (And no, I am not against the death penalty altogether.)

When a murderer confesses, he should not be tried. If he stands up in front of the judge and admits his guilt, he should be taken out behind the courthouse and be executed.
1. Firing squad.
2. Hanging
3. Or by the same method he killed his victims.
Let the family of the victim(s) make that decision.
Liberals always say that the death penalty is not a deterrent. Let me ask them this:
Has anyone who was executed ever try to kill anyone again? If that's not a deterrent, what the hell is?

Justice delayed is justice denied.
The American public wants the decision of the death penalty but they don't want the actual executions". Many other important people quoted as saying that he will never be executed. Very discouraging for the victims and the relatives. They will never heal or have closure. The Media, the entertainment industry, and Academia have a stranglehold on opinion in this country.
I'd be surprised if this guy is ever executed. He'll be able to appeal, re-appeal, cite technicalities etc., etc., until he dies of old age.


Mr Humble's Opinion is supported by Tom Keane of
 PoliticoMagazine :

 

No victim of the Boston Marathon bombings was more poignant, perhaps, than eight-year-old Martin Richard. It was a photo of a smiling Martin, who was from Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, holding up a handmade sign saying, “No more hurting people,” that seemed to underscore the callousness of the acts and the innocence of the victims. Yet even as the trial focused on the trauma suffered by the Richard family–not only was Martin killed, but his sister Jane lost her left leg and his mother and father were also severely injured–the family itself issued a statement urging the prosecution to abandon its quest for the death penalty.

That a family so tragically and permanently affected by these terrible acts could still take such a principled stand sums up how a lot of people in Massachusetts feel about the death penalty imposed Friday on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two brothers responsible for the 2013 bombings. Some might think the opposition to the sentence carries a whiff of hypocrisy with it. This deep-blue state has been long known for its opposition to capital punishment, but apparently those noble principles have been trumped by cold reality. Even liberals, it seems, will seek harsh vengeance when it’s their children getting killed and their streets red with blood.
In fact, though, Massachusetts and its principles have acquitted themselves quite well. The death penalty trial was imposed by the federal government against the wishes of the state. By a wide majority, the Bay State’s citizens opposed the ultimate punishment for Tsarnaev. So too did some of the victims. And perhaps most troubling of all, the jury’s verdict will bring little measure of closure. Rather than Tsarnaev disappearing anonymously behind bars for the rest of his days, his case will be appealed and fought. Death by execution, if it ever comes, may be decades away.
The last executions in Massachusetts were in 1947. Since then, the state had become increasingly uncomfortable with the death penalty. A Boston Globe poll conducted during the Tsarnaev trial, for example, found only 30 percent of the state’s residents supported the death penalty. That contrasts markedly to national polls which show that – despite growing reservations about its use – it still has solid support.
But it’s clear that, soon after the bombings, the fate of Dzhokhar was quickly politicized. Some members of Congress, including Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, wanted to treat him as an enemy combatant. It was a dubious idea which would have meant trying him – a U.S. citizen – in military courts without basic constitutional protections. In response, the Department of Justice pushed to federalize the case, taking it out of the hands of the state. A key reason for that: Massachusetts law doesn’t permit the death penalty. Federal law does.
Tsarnaev’s trial then kicked off with a controversy. In order to sit on the jury, jurors had to be “death qualified” – meaning they were comfortable in imposing execution. Given that only a minority of residents fit that qualification, the pool of potential jurors shrank. And, of course, the resulting jury was almost by definition more biased in favor of capital punishment than would have been a representative cross section of the state.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/why-boston-is-queasy-about-the-tsarnaev-sentence-118019.html#ixzz3aRus4vv0

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