From New York Times email:
A federal jury on Friday condemned Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a failed college student, to death for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed three people and injured hundreds more in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
The jury of seven women and five men, which last month convicted Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, of all 30 charges against him, 17 of which carry the death penalty, took more than 14 hours to reach its decision.
I am not sure how I feel about this one. I think I would be more comfortable with life in prison with no chance of parole. I think his age has something to do with it. He is young. He would be around for a long time. I felt the same way about Malvo. I was glad he got life.
For the record: Generally speaking, I am not opposed to the death penalty as long as there is absolute certainty of guilt.
How do the readers feel?
He will probably be around for another 20 years after going through numerous appeals. I, too, am not opposed to the death penalty and I wonder if, in this case, life imprisonment in a maximum security prison where they have almost no privileges, would have been a greater punishment. When he is finally executed, will he be considered a martyr? Perhaps.
George, I hadn’t even thought about the martyr end of it. You are absolutely right. Let him sit his ass in prison for the next 60 years and think about what he has done. Solitary so he doesn’t get to get pumped up by the Muslim brotherhood in prison.
I am opposed to the death penalty but this is one situation that one could make a moral exception. If a terrorist group adopts DT as an honorary member for his notoriety, they might kidnap children to use as hostages in exchange for his freedom. He isn’t a criminal mastermind so freeing him isn’t the danger, it is the emotional toll of conceding to terrorism. This is one of the few situations where being locked in prison may not be enough to stop the criminal behavior.
Well, I never thought of that. I guess its damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
The death penalty in this instance provides promoters of religiously inspire extremism exactly what they want – the meme of martyrdom. It would have been a harsher punishment, and a far more effective deterrent to similar behavior by young, impressionable, gullible kids, if this guy had had to spend the next 70 years in a maximum security prison.
With jihadists, they already have lots of martyrs. This guy is not filling a needed martyrdom nitch.
Just letting you know that comments are closed on the open thread