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News

Death for Boston Marathon Bomber

Kevin ClarkeMay 15, 2015

A Federal jury sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death today. The decision for death was reached despite a strong pushback against the use of capital punishment in the case from Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley and the Massachusetts Catholic Conference of Bishops and the appeal of a leading Catholic voice against the death penalty, Sister Helen Prejean. Survivors and family members of the victims had also asked for life without parole for Tsarnaev, who was 19 at the time he committed the terrorist attack which claimed three lives and injured and disfigured scores more. They argued that putting their families through what will likely become a long appeals process will only force them to relive the tragedy.

A spokesperson for Cardinal O’Malley said he did not expect a statement from the cardinal or the Massachusetts bishops today. They had issued a strong statement against the use of capital punishment in April.

The decision was reached in 14 hours of deliberations over three days. Tsarnaev was convicted last month of all 30 federal charges against him, including use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of an MIT police officer during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt. Seventeen of those charges carried the possibility of the death penalty.

The defense had never argued that Tsarnaev was innocent of the crimes he had been charged with, putting his life in the hands of a defense at sentencing that suggested Tsarnaev had been an impressionable teen enthralled by an older brother who compelled him to become involved in the attack. That brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev died days after the bombing, shot by police and run over by his younger brother during a chaotic and violent getaway attempt.

The only evidence of remorse on his part in the two years since the attack was offered by the defense’s final witness, Sister Helen Prejean, a death penalty opponent made famous by the book and film “Dead Man Walking.”

She quoted Tsarnaev as saying of the bombing victims: “No one deserves to suffer like they did.”

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Thomas Rankin
9 years 5 months ago
The worst of all possible outcomes. To make matters worse, Massachusetts doesn't customarily have the death penalty. This had to be purposely sought out.
Martin Eble
9 years 5 months ago
Massachusetts does not have a death penalty. This was a Federal trial on Federal charges. In states without the death penalty charges are often brought under Federal statutes in particularly heinous cases.
Beth Cioffoletti
9 years 5 months ago
I never understood why capital cases always have to have a death penalty approved jury. Anyone on the jury has to believe that state sponsored murder is a justified response to violence. That biases and skews the decision far more than a jury of peers would.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
A possible grounds for appeal is quite paradoxical in this case: it was argued, previously, that the case should not have been tried in Boston because of a bias amongst the populace against the "terrorist," but, to get to a "jury of his peers," the prosecution had to filter out most of those "representative" peers, because the majority of the population of Massachusetts are now Catholics who hold with their bishops that the death penalty is no longer a legitimate punishment. (And this is now being registered by the disgust with the sentence being expressed through polling in Boston: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/us/death-sentence-for-boston-bomber-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-unsettles-city-he-tore-apart.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0&gwh=160F8A21865388CD9ED913FA953F6167&gwt=pay ) Therefore, the "jury" was not "representative" of Dzokhar's "peers" in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The trial, then, should have been held in a venue in which fewer prospective jurors would have had to be asked if they approved or disapproved of the death penalty, so as to arrive at a "representative" body of Dzohkar's "peers."
Martin Eble
9 years 5 months ago
The jury is to first determine whether the defendant is guilty of the crime. Facts adduced by the prosecution are weighed with the defenses produced by the accused’s counsel in light of the law itself. The second task in a capital case is to consider the gravity of the offense and the state of mind of the defendant. The goal is to levy a punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense, required of the State under natural law and consistent with the Church’s teachings. The term “state sponsored murder” reflects your beliefs and assumptions, but neither the law nor the Church consider a death penalty when the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, and the gravity of the offense is such that the death penalty is proportionate, murder. A jury is formed without prejudices and prejudgments. Those who have formed opinions prior to the trial as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, who oppose the laws under which the trial is conducted, or who cannot impose the entire range of punishments if the gravity of the offense warrants it, are eliminated. The proper venue for opposing capital punishment is in the legislature. The argument that the majority of people in a particular jurisdiction share prejudgments and prejudices, and therefore a jury of “peers” would consist of people who oppose the laws under which the trial is conducted, or would eliminate certain punishments a priori before the conduct of a trial, is really an argument that Justice should remove the blindfold and that we should operate under what amounts to mob rule.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
It WAS "purposely sought out." Before anyone dismisses me as a "tin hat" conspiracy theorist, I'd like to ask you a series of what you'll have to agree are purely objective questions: #1. Why was Dzokhar never asked, "Did you make the bombs?"" #2. Why was he never asked, "Were you present when the bombs were made?" #3. Why was he never asked, "What did your brother tell you about what the bombs contained or were made of?" My suspicion is that his likely answers would have been, "no" and "no" and "nothing." I further suspect that he wasn't put on the stand to be asked those questions because his defense attorneys were either in collusion with the government cover-up of the Boston Marathon bombing, or they believed that they had worked out a deal with the prosecution--OR, as is most likely, they believed that they would be able to get the trial verdict overturned, either because of the government's over-hastiness or because of the incorrect choice of venue. I predict that the government will attempt to speed up the execution of this poor misguided fool so he can be the "patsy" for their bungled "false flag" operation. His only hope would be to overrule his defense attorneys and tell everything he knows. Of course, the government doesn't want that, just as they didn't want McVeigh to tell everything he knew about his right-wing co-conspirators, just as they didn't want Julius Rosenberg to tell the world that his wife was being held hostage to secure his implication of others in a "conspiracy" that barely existed. What we have in the USA today is the system now called by some intelligent political scientists "inverted totalitarianism" masking itself as democracy through mass-manipulation by the media. One of the things this kind of corrupt government is adept at is creating lynch mobs, but the good Catholic population of Massachusetts are NOT a "lynch mob," and that's why the government had to exclude so many of the prospective jurors--because, as Catholics, they would be mindful of their Church's "developed" position on the death penalty. They might also have been aware--as I am, as a teacher of youth--that nobody is fully developed, in judgment or mental ability, until he or she is well out of adolescence: the developmental psychologists put that age at around twenty-five. Which means that the U.S. government and its minions have decided to judicially murder a child, in order to cover up their ineptitude (perhaps in making an FBI patsy "turned" in Chechnya part of their bungled "fire drill"), or worse. In short, I believe it is very likely that a "fire drill" was planned, that that is why Craft International agents were all over the streets on that day, that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was coerced by the FBI or the CIA into being the operative, because they had all the evidence they needed to implicate him in a drug-related murder, that he "turned" against them for reasons of his Islamic zealotry, and that he never told his kid-brother what was up, and the kid brother went along with it, up to and including the firefight, because he hero-worshiped his elder brother. And I believe that all the evidence points to THAT explanation of this whole, disgusting mess.
Beth Cioffoletti
9 years 5 months ago
Wow. That's interesting, Robert. It's only recently that I've become aware of the larger plan surrounding Timothy McVeigh bombing in Oklahoma City. Even though I'm no conspiracist, I still can't buy the official stories about the assassination of MLK. One of the reasons given for not sending Tsarnaev to the federal maximum security prison in Colorado for life was because they thought he would still have a chance to "influence" others from there. What's that all about? All prisoners, anywhere, can influence others.
Cammy Cam
9 years 5 months ago
Members of the U.S. Government were found guilty of conspiracy in the murder of MLK Jr. in a civil trial in 1999 after twenty or so minutes of deliberation. You may not have heard about it though. The media didn't seem interested in reporting on it. But OJ Simpson--that was on TV 24/7 for weeks! The trial of the century!
Martin Eble
9 years 5 months ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyd_Jowers
Frank Gibbons
9 years 5 months ago
I am absolutely against the death penalty in all cases including this one. Having said that, the most charitable thing that I can say about your comment is that it sounds like the ramblings of a "tin hat conspiracy theorist." The man committed a crime. I wish he received a life sentence instead of death. But this other stuff about the FBI or the CIA being behind the crime is an insult to all those who suffered horribly from the actions of the Tsarnaev brothers. As Joseph Welch said to Joe McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, Sir?" Your comments should be deleted.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
The "insult" given to these victims is the exact same "insult" that is given to the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing--the failure to properly investigate and publish the WHOLE TRUTH about what cost them their lives. Because I want the WHOLE TRUTH to be brought out through a COMPLETE investigation of both crimes means that I have a heck of a lot more decency than you, with your obscene wish to censor references to the very "mitigating factors" that should have drawn a lesser sentence.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
Oh, and may I make something clear to you: I DO think that Dzokhar is guilty--but LESS "guilty" than his brother--and I DO believe that he should be punished; however, I also agree with three jurors who didn't have the moral stamina to abide by their expressed conviction during deliberations (which have been reported)--that there were "mitigating circumstances" that should indicate a lesser penalty. Those "mitigating circumstances" (especially the nature of his relations with his brother leading up to the time of the crime, and bearing on whether there was "full disclosure" between them), are of GREAT concern to anybody at all who thinks, as I do, that the application of the death penalty in America is highly politicized and that it leads to miscarriages of justice by ruthlessly ambitious prosecutors who wish to throw "red meat" to a public brainwashed by corporate media.
Frank Gibbons
9 years 5 months ago
Robert, Stop using CAPS. They weaken your argument. They betray a lack of confidence that what you're really saying is true.
Tom Maher
9 years 5 months ago
This is classic truther propaganda. 20 minutes after the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon truther radio personalities without any investigation classically declared without proof the government was responsible for setting off the bombs. Actual investigation showed otherwise. Truthers after every mass casualties events since the 9/11 attacks on America including the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York have been blaming the government for the mass casualty events. The benefit of the trial and sentencing of the surviving Tsarnaev brother is the result that Tsarnaev is guilty of all thirty counts brought against him and the gravity of these federal crimes of mass murder and mayhem according to twelve independent jurors is Tsarnaev should get the death penalty. The sentence fits the horror and callousness of the crime proven at trial and is a just ,appropriate and urgently needed response of civil society to the gravity of the crimes. The death penalty for these crimes of mass destruction is an important precedent establishing society's measured response to such horrific and callous crimes. Society has demonstrated it is not confused by truther arguments shifting the blame for the crimes or political or religious sympathizers who believe the Tsarnaev had a right or duty to kill and maim innocent people in the United States. In the United States Courts even in very liberal places like Boston, Massachusetts mass murders will be prosecuted, found guilty and sentenced to death without doubt or confusion created by political sympathizers who wish to rationalize or justify crimes of deliberate mass destruction. As has also happened people who aided the Tsarnaev brothers before or after the fact have been vigorously sought out and prosecuted. Mass murder and assisting mass murders in any way are very serious crimes that no one should have any doubt will be severely punished as has been demonstrated in the Federal Courts of Boston and elsewhere over the last two years since the mass destruction of the Boston Marathon bombings and its aftermath.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
"Truthers" are generally folks who believe that government cover-ups are motivated by the desire to "cover up" nefarious government acts which are criminally-planned and motivated. I am "truly" not that kind of "conspiracy theorist," if you want to call me that. Instead, I believe that most American government cover-ups, from the wayward Warren Court investigation of JFK's assassination, to the attack on the USS Liberty by the Israelis,to the denial of the request by the New York City police to test the steel beams of the World Trade Center, in order to determine the source of the heat that partially melted them--and to, instead, ship them out of the country within DAYS of 9/11--to this case, are almost always attempts to "cover up" American government incompetence and stupidity. Do you mean to tell me that you don't know that the Russians warned the American FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's terrorist connections? Do you mean to tell me that the FBI and the Boston police didn't suspect that something suspicious was going to happen when so many Craft International operatives were assigned to the Boston streets? Of course, that doesn't mean that occasionally "double agents" don't "turn" when they're involved in what the espionage community call "government projections" to keep a conspiracy going until arrests are made, and it doesn't mean that within large intelligence agencies like the CIA and the Pakistani ISS and the Israeli Mossad there aren't internecine struggles going on, in which large or small groups of spies and double-agents go "rogue" and do precisely the opposite of what they've been commissioned to do. Your trust in the bona fides of various departments of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government is quite amusing and very naive, considering Twentieth Century history.
Tom Maher
9 years 5 months ago
So your saying the federal trial in Boston that the jury found Tsarnaev guilty of 30 felony counts involved in the Boston Marathon mass destruction and its aftermath including six counts which the jury found Tsarnaev should be sentenced to death for is factually incorrect?
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
Probably, yes. "So you're saying that the report of the Warren Commission, which was presided over by such luminaries as a Chief Justice of the United States, etc. etc. is 'factually incorrect'?" Yes, indeed, I am. "So you're saying that the trial of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City Bombing, which was 'presided over' by the FBI and the Bureau of Narcotics and Firearms and etc. etc. was 'factually incorrect,' in that it failed to introduce a large part of the evidence that was even then available?" Yes, precisely so.
Cammy Cam
9 years 5 months ago
It's true. Real Truthers admit the possibility that, yes, people can be that evil, and people within the government could "criminally plan" heinous and nefarious acts, just like "terrorists," and seek to cover them up. People are people. People within the government are no less likely to use violence and murder and lies to achieve their ends than others. I recommend "JFK and The Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters."
Tom Maher
9 years 5 months ago
Assigning blame for who committed a mass casualty event such as the Boston Marathon bombings and aftermath is not a matter of mood or opinion it is a mater of evidence. There is an abundance of evidence definitively showing the two Tsarnaev brothers placed and exploded the two bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line that killed several people and seriously maimed and injured hundreds of other people. Evidence was exhaustively presented at Tsarnaev's trial leading to his conviction by the jury and a jury verdict for the death penalty. No other realistic explanation exist that explain the four day killing spree in the Boston area the week of April 15, 2013. It is a falsehood and irrational to say as truthers have done without evidence that the government is somehow to blame for the Boston Marathon mass destruction and violent aftermath.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
We are not talking about the conviction; we are talking here about evidence that was OBVIOUSLY suppressed during the sentencing phase of the trial that would have contributed to the estimation of the LEVEL of guilt or complicity of the younger brother. (Largely "suppressed" by never giving him an opportunity to testify or submit to cross-examination--either a mistake on the part of his defense attorneys, or the result of their "cooperation" with the government). Also, I, at least, have NEVER--not once--suggested that the "government" is responsible for initiating violence during the Boston Marathon bombing; what I AM, however, suggesting is that there may very well be evidence that they bungled crime prevention because they ignored indicators that there would be an "event," OR that they ALLOWED something to happen that they thought might just be a minor scare. Afterwards, of course, they would not want their malfeasance or ineptitude to be made public, and, in order to make sure it, whatever it is, never be revealed, they are willing to let this kid go to his death. This, many, many people now believe, is exactly what has happened in the cases of Timothy McVeigh's co-conspirators in the Oklahoma City bombing, and the "evidence" the government are suppressing, relating, most likely, to the FBI's contact with and manipulation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, may very likely indicate that Dzokhar Tsarnaev is less of an accomplice to the crime than the prosecutors (and, perhaps, conniving defense attorneys) made him to appear at his trial. This whole trial needs to be done again, and I predict the defense will win their appeal, based on improper choice of venue and incomplete opportunity and time given to the defense to research the background of the crime.This boy, I predict, will not die in the Indiana execution chamber, IF he gets a proper defense that INCLUDES his telling a jury everything he knows and remembers. If I were the survivor of one of the victims, that's what I would want to happen; it's certainly what a number of the survivors of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing are now calling for, in the case of the overly-precipitous execution of Timothy McVeigh (who obviously wished to be a "good soldier" for his fellow conspirators).
Tom Maher
9 years 5 months ago
Boston Marathon of April 15, 2013 near to the finish line which is on a busy avenue in Boston was the most extensively photographed, videotaped and otherwise documented event from thousands of sources. Overwhelming direct and definitive visual evidence exists which was presented at trial showing the Tsarnaev brothers acting individually and together each with a the large backpack they carried that each placed on the ground in the crowd that later exploded killing six people and maiming hundreds people in the crowd and the Tsarnaev brother fleeing without their backpacks. The surveillance video from the Lord and Taylor store directly across the street from where the two bombs exploded that has been made public clearly shows Dzokhar Tsarnaev placing his backpack a few feet away from a family and its detonation killing an eight year old boy and severely injuring his mother and other members of his family. Real people died and were injured by Dzokhar Tsarnaev by his placing a powerful bomb in the crowd watching the Boston Marathon. Four days later while fleeing from the police in a SUV that was stolen at gunpoint the Tsarnaev brothers detonated more bombs in an wild police auto chase with extensive exchange of gunfire. The Tsarnaev brothers stopped the SUV and directly engaged the police in an intense shootout where the older brother Tamalan was killed and the younger brother again fled the scene in the stolen SUV. The evidence for the 30 count federal jury conviction and jury death penalty conviction for six of these felonies is overwhelming.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
Pay attention to my three questions above, and then consider this hypothesis: What if Dzokhar Tsarnaev was never told what were the contents of the backpacks his brother had him help to deposit along the bomb site? What if his brother told him that he was constantly in touch with the FBI handlers that we know he had? And what if he told his brother that everything was "cool" with the Feds? We know that Dzokhar idolized his brother and would follow his directives regarding most things, so what if he only learnt the full ramifications of his action after the backpacks exploded? You do know, don't you, that at least one of the backpacks, as photographed, seems to have had a Craft International logo on it? So, what if Tamerlan Tsarnaev only revealed to his brother that he had gone "rogue" from his FBI handlers AFTER he was in flight from the Boston police, perhaps in the stolen SUV? You might, then, ask yourself, "Why didn't he testify to this effect during his trial?" Perhaps his attorneys advised him not to, saying that they had worked out a deal with the prosecutors. Or perhaps he never told them much about his flight with his brother or whatever his brother told him before and after they became fugitives. Also, perhaps, after his brother's "ultimate sacrifice" for jihad, he decided, perhaps in that boat which he was snatched from, that he, too, would be a jihadist, like the brother he idolized, and so the defense attorneys were afraid that he'd say something that inflammatory, if they allowed him to testify at his own trial. No matter what were the discussions with his defense attorneys or with his elder brother, they certainly ARE germane regarding the level of Dzokhar Tsarnaev's guilt. Somehow, and for unknown reasons, his legal representatives failed him, by not providing ALL of the possible mitigating circumstances regarding his level of culpability,as it relates to his eligibility for the federal death penalty, thus playing right into the government's hands, and allowing law enforcement to pass under the pubic's radar, regarding either their total ineptitude in preventing something that they had every reason to anticipate, or their failure to completely manage a "controlled event" because their double agent turned on them. Meanwhile, I simply don't understand the appetite being displayed here, by you and other commentators, for a judicial murder to precipitously put an end to a full investigation of a very mysterious case that is not at all "open and shut," and which has numerous unanswered questions, all related to the behavior of so-called "security agencies," police and investigators, who seem to be operating without accountability to the general public and who, on such other occasions as the McVeigh Affair, seem absolutely willing to "cover up" the full extent of a terrorist episode with a publicly-staged judicial charade of seeming "justice" in which only one person and one aspect of the crime are identified for proper punishment.
Tom Maher
9 years 5 months ago
One might ask why do you condone mass destruction which has been definitely proven by a abundance of evidence? Your questions and your assertion are irrelevant. If you want to blame the government for the mass casualty event of the 2013 Boston Marathon you will have to develop evidence to make a separate case of the governments involvement but that still would not excuse or lessen the criminal actions of the Tsarnaev brothers and for their own roles individually and as a team in the Boston Marathon bombings caught on video tape By the way four separate people have previously been convicted and sentence at separated federal trials for their role in assisting the Tsarnaev brothers after the Boston Marathon bombings evade arrest, making false statements to investigators and for attempting to destroy significant evidence that was later recovered. Also at the trial it was revealed the Tamalan Tsarnaev was in contact with other people in the Boston area who were convicted of conspiring to cause mass destruction and another who was arrested for multiple homicides. It is highly likely other people whom the Tsarnaev brothers networked with before and after the Boston Marathon bombings and may also be prosecuted if they can be found. But having help in planning and executing crimes does not lessen or excuse the central role of the Tsarneav brothers in multiple murders and use of weapons of mass destruction the week of April 15, 2013.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
My "questions and assertions" regarding the LEVEL of "culpability" will NOT be "irrelevant" during the appeal, I assure you; you are going to hear a lot more evidence regarding the make-up of that "team" (which may not have been so much a "team" as you are representing it to be). All of this could have been avoided, had the recommendations of three of the jurors regarding the overwhelming evidence that Tamerlan was the instigator of the crimes and the motivator of his brother been given due consideration as mitigating factors. Now you are going to have to listen to all of this for decades. The barbaric use of so-called "capital punishment" in the United States is a prime factor in preventing truly unbiased investigations of crimes, as well as slow and careful consideration of evidence, away from the sensationalism of cheer-leading media primed by politicized prosecutors for "red meat" to deliver to a brainwashed public. And where, by the way, in my comments, do you find any evidence that I condone any of the crimes committed? Your question is a malicious diversion away from what I have asked and suggested. I might just as well ask you--with the same amount of limited justification--why YOU condone a botched and insufficient police investigation and a precipitous and selective prosecution. If I honestly believed that Dzokhar Tsarnaev was an instigator and planner of the crime from the time of its inception, believe me, I'd drop my insistence that there should be a new trial with a more thorough submission of evidence--despite my moral and religious opposition to the death penalty in any and all situations except "existential threats" to communities or individuals. However, based on all that I've read about the background of this crime in Boston, I do not believe that. Instead, I believe that very seriously legitimate questions are asked here: http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/11/14/boston-bombing-iron-curtain/ https://youtu.be/K7LmxyZXMw0
Tom Maher
9 years 5 months ago
Fortunately despite your objections to the contrary Dzokhar Tsarnaev has been found guilty by a jury in a federal trial of all 30 felony counts he was charged with, six of which the jury decided deserved the death penalty. It is expected part of any felony conviction for one or more appeals to challenge sometimes extensively the facts and proper process of a trial and validity of its conclusions and verdicts. It very speculative and unlikely to believe that a jury verdict based on solid evidence and due process of law will somehow be overturned. Your objections are metaphysical and have no legal basis or credible evidence to overturn the verdicts against Dzokhar Tsarnaev.
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
And, actually, I think that commentators here have “Truthers” confused with “libertarians” of both the right and the left. If anything, I myself am a sort of Catholic “libertarian” of the left, but with broad sympathies with European “conservatism” of the “wet Tory” persuasion. I do not, under any circumstances, however, trust ANY government of this modern epoch, and I put a great deal of credibility in accounts of the nefarious and depraved accounts of government doings, such as this: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/no_author/the-murder-of-jfk-2/ And I really think that all Catholics who are willing to let their religious values inform their politics should read this book, so they may understand how far away from ANY spiritual values or precepts are the behaviors of so-called “liberal democratic governments”: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1439193886/ref=as_sl_pd_tf_lc?tag=lewrockwell&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1439193886&adid=130V2ZT9NWWVX98SKQZX&&ref-refURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F2015%2F05%2Fno_author%2Fthe-murder-of-jfk-2%2F American “exceptionalism” married to ultramontane Catholic religious politics is a formula for total betrayal of Jesus Christ.
Tim O'Leary
9 years 5 months ago
I think the conspiratorial speculations below are overwrought. The situation seems plain enough. He was/is an unrepentant mass murderer and showed no remorse for his crimes throughout the court case. Massachusetts' self-identifying Catholics are unfortunately not that different from anywhere else in the US - take the Church teachings under advisement and go with one's gut in a specific situation. I was opposed to the death penalty in this case, because a) the Church is opposed to capital punishment in principle if society can be protected without it (the prudential argument in the Catechism - probably true in this case, although given past exchanges of terrorists for captured Americans, I am not so sure); b) Tsarnaev seems to want it, to die a martyr to the homicidal wing of Islam; c) it is way too lenient for his crimes, and ridiculously costly. Given the US system of appeals, if he fights the sentence (unlikely, I think), he has a chance of living a very long time on death row, certainly longer than if we handed him over to the Russians or even ISIS (the life-span among ISIS recruits seems very short). I wonder what others think would have been the most just sentence? Life imprisonment with hard labor? Twenty years in an asylum for him to mature? A few years in GTMO - still an active prison 6 years after Obama's promise to close it ("day one of my presidency")?
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
Sister Prejean (whom I trust absolutely) says that he IS repentant. Camus's anti-hero in THE STRANGER is convicted chiefly on the grounds that he showed no emotion at his mother's funeral; that's about the same asinine claim made by you, based on Dzokhar's demeanor at the trial. Apparently no one but Sister Prejean--not even his colluding attorneys--bothered to ask him for the record if he was repentant. So I'm guessing that he will fight the sentence; the question is, "Will he reveal more about what he knows regarding the background of the crime?" Considering the fact that there are so many questions that the police and the FBI refuse to answer about the crime itself, it's as much in the public interest to keep him alive as it was to keep Timothy McVeigh alive. WHY is this so important? Because the public honestly need to know what kind of crimes the FBI and the CIA are willing to commit, outside AND inside the U.S., in order to manipulate American public opinion, and keep the populace terrorized.
Tim O'Leary
9 years 5 months ago
Asinine, indeed - for a teacher of youth, you certainly like the verbal insults. I wouldn't like to be in your class. In your alternate universe it is the US government (Obama administration for the Boston bombing and the Clinton one for the Oklahoma bombing) and their FBI and CIA who are really to blame for all this, forcing their terrorist hands. You say you believe Dzokhar is guilty, but of what you don't say? And, you don't give an alternative to the death penalty. What, in your universe, Robert would be a just sentence for Tsarnaev or McVeigh? Should they have gone to prison at all and for how long? Any hard labor? Or out after a few years, with a sincere apology?
Robert Lewis
9 years 5 months ago
I'm certainly NOT withdrawing my allegation that your desire to suppress any and all investigations of these crimes is asinine: it is. Forty or Fifty years for Dzokhar and life for McVeigh, with the understanding of possibility of commutation of sentences, if they'd express repentance and cooperate with investigators. These are the punishments they'd be given in the more civilized European societies.
Tim O'Leary
9 years 5 months ago
Robert - I note that even your sentence would be be seen as too severe in thoroughly modern Norway, where the killer of 77 people was deemed sane and guilty and yet received only 21 years - Anders Behring Breivik. And, are you talking about the "more civilized European societies" that consider it fine to abort their young and euthanize their old, that have abandoned religion and legalized every type of sex trade? As to asinine, you have it ass-backwards.

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A man carries a Hezbollah flag as he walks on the rubble of his destroyed apartment following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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Joseph Hazboun, CNEWA’s regional director in Jerusalem, described expanding difficulties for the Christian Arab community on the West Bank but added that nothing, of course, compared to the complete humanitarian breakdown being experienced in Gaza.
Kevin ClarkeNovember 06, 2024
The day after Trump’s victory: searching for mercy, justice and God’s providence
This election highlights the deep divisions in American society. But perhaps the strange working of mercy and providence is evident even there, keeping us attentive to the need for conversion and reconciliation.
Sam Sawyer, S.J.November 06, 2024
Five political takeaways from the 2024 election
Kamala Harris did worse with women, Hispanics and young people than did the Democratic candidates in the last two presidential election.
Thomas J. ReeseNovember 06, 2024