Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Found Guilty, May Face Death Penalty
As many of us already know The Boston Marathon was bombed almost two years ago to the date. It's known the bombing was planned and carried out by the Tsarnaev brothers. Tamerlan, the older of the two who was shot and killed during a standoff with Watertown Police, and the younger of the two Dzhokhar. With Dzhokhar being the only one left to stand trial, he was charged with 30 counts with many having the death penalty as a sentence if found guilty. Today the jury came to the verdict after about 12 hours of deliberation over a 2 day period. They found Tsarnaev to be guilty on all 30 counts his faced. Now, the same jury moves to the sentencing phase. With more witness testimonies the group of seven women and 5 men will have to decided if Tsarnaev should be put to death or not. The vote for him to receive the death penalty must be unanimous.The question comes into play now if death is the easy way out for a man who injured over 200 people and killed 4. The Tsarnaev brothers set out to cause death and destruction on innocent civilians, but is sentencing him to death enough justice for the atrocities they caused? I believe not. Making him suffer in prison for the rest of his life seems more fitting for me. Those in favor of the death penalty might claim that their is no mistakes in this case, everyone knows he did it, thus there can't be any mistake in killing an innocent man which has happened in other death penalty cases. But isn't that the easy way out for a 21 year old? He would have to spend his entire life thinking about the decisions he made if not sentenced to death. He's a coward and doesn't deserve the right to forget about the mistakes he's made. Let him rot in prison. Opinions? Do you think that seeing we live so close to Boston we're more likely to lean one way or another on the issue? Is the death penalty really the answer?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32225787
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/08/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-verdict-boston-marathon-bombing
5 comments:
This brought a very important issue to light. I, myself, am against the death penalty because so many people have been wrongly sentenced. Perhaps in the case of the Boston bomber, who is relatively young, spending his life in prison might prove to be a better sentence.
I agree with James point. I actually haven't decided my opinion on the death penalty- I don't activate against it though necessarily because of my indecisiveness on the issue, there are some seriously evil people in our world, and if someone sentenced them to death, well those are the facts. I think I was pro-death penalty, or at least as an institution, before seeing the life of David Gale, and now I have decided that its up to the sentencers. With that said, if I were sitting on a jury I physically could not bring myself to sentence someone to death. If that makes it so I can never sit on a capital murder case, well, I'm actually not upset at that.
This was a great one to write a post on if you ask me, because I really don't know what I feel could even be just in this case. There was one family affected so traumatically that I cried when I heard the story of their personal situation-
Interestingly enough, to write this comment I found myself wanting to look up the name of the family I was thinking of, and I found this...
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/boston_marathon_bombing_victim_list/
and now I am even more torn on the subject, because maybe we should just give him the out of death because I don't know how his life could ever be of use for a greater good the way that all of the victims of the bombings may have been, had they been allowed to live.
I find that I am also personally conflicted when it comes to the death penalty. There have been way too many instances where individuals have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death, only to have the truth revealed after the fact. On the other hand, its easy to let emotions get the best of you when such brutal acts of violence occur.
However, the people who truly are guilty and carry out these horrific crimes don't have any regard for human life, including their own. Its likely that they're expecting to die as a result of their actions, so why give them that? I think I would rather Tsarnaev sit in a cell for the remainder of his life. I think sentencing him to death is only relieving him of his punishment, and essentially setting him free.
I think that putting Tsarnaev to death would only make him a martyr in the eyes of radical Islamists and possibly provoke more violence. Like the rest of the Western World would, we should punish him with a lengthy prison term, rather than ending his suffering instantly.
This was a terrible tragedy that effected many people. I believe that Tsarnaev should not get the death penalty . I personally believe that its a cop out. Yes Tax payers will pay for him to live in a max security prison. But his life will be hell until he dies in his cell after living there for a long time.
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