Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Should He Be Executed?

Post Reply New Topic

Any predictions which punishment the jury will recommend?

I think they will give him life in prison.

I think probably life in prison and that seems to be the appropriate sentence, I haven't been following the case but the general feeling seems to be that his older brother Tamerlan was the driving force behind the attacks while Dzhokhar was for the most part a seemingly normal teen.

If "life", then in a maximum-security super-prison.

If "death", then by decapitation.

Yes, off with his head quickly!! !

I think he should be given "life-in-prison", because DEATH is what he WANTS!

I support life in prison, because capital punishment is a practice I'd expect from barbaric backwater nations, not an economically-developed liberal free-market democracy.

I don't think the debate in this case should be over the correctness or ethics etc. of capital punishment. I would say that given that crimes such as this are legally punishable by death, and given the fact that we do punish some criminals this way, he should be executed. We should not execute some criminals whose crimes justify capital punishment under the law, and then turn around and not execute others whose crimes would otherwise justify capital punishment because we think we shouldn't have capital punishment. We do have it, and the law should be applied equally to all.

I've heard suggestions that capital punishment should be reserved for the worst of the worst. Maybe, but I don't think that means to go so far as to reserve it only for the one single person who is the worst of the worst. The older brother might be worse than the younger brother, but the younger brother's crimes are worse than almost any other criminal act in American history - beside 9/11 and Timothy McVeigh, its difficult to think of any which are worse. His crimes are worse than 99.9999% of other criminals, and certainly worse than 99.99999999999% of society at large. He is the worst of the worst, by any reasonable definition or application of the phrase.

Beyond that, the idea that the older brother influenced him is no excuse, unless it can be demonstrated that he could no longer tell the difference between right and wrong. I haven't heard anything that makes me think he couldn't.

He should be strapped to a device similar to the one he and his brother used in their marathon attack then have it detonated. If he survives then he can live the rest of his life in jail with whatever is left of him, if not, oh well.

In this case, as far as I'm concerned, let the punishment fit the crime, Eye for an eye, and all that.

Cases are not based on feeling. Under the law he is equally culpable for his decisions. As the defense views didn't prevail it is not part of sentencing.

I should point out that even if someone is a major influence, or "driving force" as you put it this alone doesn't diminish responsibility under the law. You would have to prove something like physical coercion, and they submitted no evidence of that.

Other than that, life imprisonment would make sense.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 09 Apr 2015, 4:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Kill him.

I don't know, "feelings" seem like a pretty big deciding factor between the death penalty and life imprisonment. How arbitrary and case to case the death penalty is even within the same state is one of the stronger arguments against it I would say.

No. Solitary confinement for life, in the dark and fed pork products only.

There is a weird special case, for death plenty in the US at least in some states, where the distinction between verdict an sentencing is blurred with the extra verdict the death penalty. I don't know how it applies to this case being federal, and know of no other crime with this double verdict.

This aspect of US law, and the whole plea bargaining system I'm strongly against in principle.

However on culpability. It doesn't matter if his brother was the ring leader. he participated in the attack, he participated in the the act.

Keep in mind Tsarnaev was convicted under federal law, not state law. A federal jury will be making a decision on which punishment to recommend. Massachusetts commonwealth law does not provide for the death penalty.

I'm all for the death penalty.
He doesn't deserve to live out his life at the expense of the very tax payers he tried to kill.

On the other hand this will further shown that the U.S. and it's allies are out to get Muslims...
Maybe Obama and/or Congress should pardon him and deporting while stripping his citizenship away to as an act of goodwill to show the U.S. is accepting of Muslims.