Posted on 04/10/2015 7:32:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
How about now?
Are you in favor of the death penalty now?
I ask because the preferred argument from opponents of the death penalty is doubt: We can never be sure; look at all of the people released from death row; we can't afford to risk ending a single innocent life.
None of those arguments apply to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He admitted, through his lawyers, that he and his brother murdered three people and maimed 260 others at the Boston Marathon. (A few days later, they murdered a police officer.)
Tsarnaev knowingly left a bomb next to a family on a family outing. Martin William Richard, 8 years old, died. His sister Jane lost a leg. His mother lost an eye.
A half-hour after the bombing, Tsarnaev went to the Whole Foods to buy some milk, and the next day, he wrote on Twitter, "I'm a stress-free kind of guy."
Ever since Rolling Stone's asinine cover story on the murderer, Tsarnaev has become something of a sex symbol for the morally stunted and chronically stupid. If you're one of them, or just someone prone to conspiracy theories who thinks maybe Tsarnaev's confession was coerced, bear in mind that he was captured on video planting the bombs. A jury convicted him on 30 out of 30 counts against him.
In other words, we know he did it. Does he deserve the death penalty?
Wait, before you answer that, consider Michael Slager. He's the North Charleston, S.C., cop who shot Walter Scott in the back as he was fleeing and then allegedly lied about why he did it.
I don't have to say he allegedly shot Scott because Slager admitted that much. I do have to say that Slager allegedly lied because that's probably going to be decided in a courtroom. Slager claimed he was in fear for his own safety after Scott stole his Taser. But it's obvious he lied because the shooting was captured on video. Slager can even be seen apparently moving the Taser to fit his story.
Legally, it's harder to argue that Slager should get the death penalty if convicted. Not all murders are equal before the law. It's unclear how much premeditation, if any, there was in this case. Presumably Slager didn't know Scott before he pulled him over for a traffic stop.
Still, I think you could make a case for the death penalty in cases like this.
The analogy that comes to mind is the wartime military. There are capital offenses for crimes other than murder because the integrity and effectiveness of the armed forces is a priority. We are not a martial society, but I could make a similar argument about police officers who murder and lie about it. Faith in the fairness of the justice system is simply indispensable to a democracy and social peace. Lack of such faith may be why Scott ran from Officer Slager. If so, his mistrust was tragically well-placed.
There's neither the time nor the space to rehearse the whole death penalty debate again. People claim, usually tautologically, that retribution is illegitimate because revenge is illegitimate. Maybe that's true. But it seems to me that what some people call revenge many others see plainly as justice.
Deterrence is often a distraction. Capital punishment clearly doesn't deter every murderer, but does it deter any would-be murder? It seems obvious it must. Deterrence is a red herring because the function of the death penalty isn't simply to scare a would-be murderer with the corpse of a convicted one; it is also to inform an entire society about what we take seriously.
Tsarnaev is, literally, a traitorous, child-murdering cop killer. He became a citizen on September 11, 2012, and by the spring he was plotting to blow up as many Americans as he could. If we can't take that seriously, we can't take anything seriously.
Slager awaits trial and is obviously a less cut-and-dried candidate for the death penalty. But killer cops do more than simply commit murder; they inflict a grievous wound to the integrity of all cops and to the justice system itself.
Slager deserves his day in court. But Tsarnaev had his -- and now he deserves death. It is honorable to oppose the death penalty on moral grounds. But it is dishonorable to blow smoke about uncertainty in other cases when there is certainty in this one.
Who cooked them up? Why the Boston Globe and the leftist in and around Boston.
You know ... The same type of people who call for the murder of bakers who won’t sell a homo a wedding cake.
It sure is not and he deserves what he gets
Maybe this is one of those cases where we have to wait and see
Welcome to Indiana!
The author forgets that he murdered his brother with a stolen SUV.
So fratricide is among his crimes.
Five deaths can be attributed to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
We might actually give him bonus points for offing Rico Suave.
Those people are mistaken. Revenge on the part of the individual citizen is something he or she cedes to the state in the interest of a government of laws. Where the state shirks its responsibility for retributive justice, the citizen's only recourse is to take it into his or her own hands or have no justice at all. This isn't something the state may elect to do or to ignore, it's something the state MUST do in order to maintain its end of the social contract, i.e. something the state must do to survive. Vigilantism is what happens when it declines to do so; enough of that and there is no state.
But society was denied justice when Dzhokhar killed his brother while escaping from the police.
The families of the slain were denied the opportunity to see justice done; of watching the mastermind of their loved ones murder be executed.
Now the only justice they get is to watch the willing accomplice be served justice.
One,or more,of them might have lied to get on the jury.Perhaps they had fantasies of a book deal.Or perhaps their *real* goal was to see that he *didn't* fry.I'm ashamed to admit that I know very little about this great big world of ours but I promise you that I *do* know Massachusetts.
If he gets the DP I'll eat my shorts.
Oh I am sure you do know MA
these are leftists, they have no moral compass just acquisition of power goals.
They commies will let this slide and then work toward their goal. If anything they will express outrage over the “execution murder”.
They do not see how the victims and families are hostages as long as he is alive. There is no finality to the horror he created.
There are a few folks on this forum opposed to death penalty at any time for any reason.
I don’t see any of them on this thread ... Perhaps they could show up and apply their principles to this case.
I respectfully disagree with the death penalty. fromoccupiedga gives the best (IMO) conservative argument for which is: “Mercy to criminals is malevolence to their victims”
I have 2 main reasons that I oppose the death penalty:
1. I believe in the sanctity of life. I oppose abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty.
2. I have seen how corrupt our government has become and the thought of the government wielding life or death power over all of us chills me. The government has no problem taxing you into poverty, persecuting you via the IRS, FBI, or other agencies. The government sees no problem with forcing you to bake a cake for a gay wedding. The government has no problem setting up 0vomitcare death panels. What makes you think it will act with any restraint when it sees fit to start putting to death political opposition? Or maybe it will sentence to death someone whose kidney is needed by a Clinton or a Kennedy. Far-fetched? So was gay marriage a few years ago.
I’m not saying that some people don’t deserve the death penalty. In fact, I think some people (child molesters and terrorists) deserve to be tortured first. But I believe that death is for God to decide. Putting the power of life and death into the hands of an increasingly corrupt government is a mistake.
(I do believe in the right of all of us to use deadly force in order to protect ourselves or others. In this case, it’s a choice of one life vs. another and I am willing to shoot someone who is attacking me or a loved one.)
If Mass didn’t have the guts to give the death sentence to the NAMBLA monsters who kidnapped and murdered little 10-year old Jeffrey Curley, I doubt the state will do so now with a terrorist.
I hear Heap Big Squaw Senator Lieawatha Warren is against the Death Penalty in this case, and probably every case.
Color me surprised.
Death penalty is too expensive. Lock him up with gay yard monsters and feed him pork. Give him plenty of opportunities to do the right thing.
Maybe we could do an ISIS style execution?
Your “morality” is confused at best and you logic is flawed.
L
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva April 2013. / Photo: Getty
The mother of convicted Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev furiously promised that the US “will pay” for convicting her “innocent” son and killing his older brother, after learning that 21-year-old Dzokhar was found guilty of all 30 counts in the Boston Marathon bombing trial. Zubeidat also sent a note in Russian to a family friend Wednesday, saying she believed Americans were the real “terrorists”, claiming her son is truly “the best of the best.” (excerpted from NY POST).
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CLARIFICATION: Dzokhar is the one who killed his brother---he aimed a stolen SUV at cops involved in a shootout w/ his brother. But Dzokhar ran over his brother instead, and dragged him to his death, attached to the SUV's undercarriage.
BTW, Mommy-dearest cannot enter the US---b/c there is a warrant out for her arrest on shoplifting charges.
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