Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Gets Death Penalty In Boston Marathon Bombing 649
mpicpp writes with a link to the New York Times's version of story that a Boston jury earlier today returned a verdict of death in the Boston Marathon bombing. From that report: 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. It was the first time a federal jury had sentenced a terrorist to death in the post-Sept. 11 era, according to Kevin McNally, director of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, which coordinates the defense in capital punishment cases.
USA in good company... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:USA in good company... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the US is not a civilized country, and it's not like Europe or Russia. We like it that way. Congratulations for realizing that.
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I would contend that less than the death penalty here would be to de-value the lives of those he killed. Taking another's life is too serious of a crime to punish by any lesser measure.
You might recall that we have a justice system, and that justice is generally defined by punishments meted out in proprotion to their crime. What punishment would be more just than death for one who has killed many?
Re:USA in good company... (Score:4, Interesting)
He's going to die eventually, and he thinks he's going to paradise. Why not let him rot in jail for the next 99 years, i.e. no chance of parole.
Execution just brings him to paradise that much sooner. If I understand it correctly, it's going to cost society more to proceed through the death penalty appeals process, than it will to imprison him for the rest of his life.
He probably doesn't want to die just yet, but he would expect the welcome of a martyr in paradise. Just make him suffer in jail in a country he hates, and make sure he gets a news feed to keep the anger burning away.
In other words, give him the chance to realise he's wasted his life, and he's not getting to paradise any sooner. Such despair is a suitable punishment.
Besides, why are individuals punished for premeditated homicide, but it's OK for the state to do it? You're only reinforcing that it's ok to kill people (and yes, there are justifications for self-defence, whether on a personal or country-wide basis).
Re:USA in good company... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would contend that less than the death penalty here would be to de-value the lives of those he killed. Taking another's life is too serious of a crime to punish by any lesser measure.
You might recall that we have a justice system, and that justice is generally defined by punishments meted out in proprotion to their crime. What punishment would be more just than death for one who has killed many?
The Greek philosopher Thrasymacus told Socrates, "Justice is the interest of the strong." That's the kind of justice system we have.
Punishments (and prosecutions in the first place), are determined by the political support that the accused gets. In our system, we avoid punishment for even the worst crimes committed by our military or cops.
For example, consider the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] The Nisour Square massacres and the rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi were worse than the Boston Massacre, and yet none of those involved got the death penalty. Those responsible for the death of Dilawar didn't even serve jail terms.
Do you also think the death penalty was appropriate for those American murderers?
Do you now conclude that our system has devalued the lives of Iraqis and Afghanis? (I would agree.)
Are you willing to execute Dzhokar, when people who committed equal or worse crimes aren't executed?
I could accept the death penalty if it were applied fairly and consistently. But it's not.
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Because two wrongs do not make a right.
Re:USA in good company... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slapping him in maximum security prison for life with no chance of parole might as well be death, but is something like 1/10th as expensive as execution.
Plus, in death he gets to be a martyr and his story paraded around on recruitment drives. But in life he can be forgotten and quietly keel over (after a couple years of a porkrind and bacon diet).
Re:USA in good company... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that... but when I read stories in the media of a tyranical state executing those who they allege have committed crimes against their culture or religion I usually think ISIS and some guy with a sword, gun or flamethrower -- yet once again, this time, it is the good old US of A who plans to engage in such an act of barbarism.
How sad it is that the USA stoops to such hypocrisy while on the one hand condemning ISIS, Al Qaeda etc, yet on the other, engaging in exactly the same acts of cruelty and disregard for human life that they do.
ISIS and Al Qaeda kill innocent people by way of suicide bombings, executions etc. The USA kills innocent people (and call it collateral damage) by way of drone strikes on people they merely "suspect" of being "insurgents" and engage in executions of those who they find guilty of breaching their legal and moral standards.
Those who deserve to lead do so by example -- not by saying "do as we say, not as we do". Sadly, the USA doesn't have the testicular fortitude to do so and prefers instead to preach from the bible of hypocrisy.
Tragic.
My sympathies to all US citizens -- your government and your judiciary is making you look bad.
Far better to lock this guy up for the rest of his natural life so that you can retain the "moral high ground" -- whilst also ensuring that he does suffer for his crime, for a lot longer than a few minutes on a table or in a chair.
Re:USA in good company... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think there are many rational people who could draw parallels between the soft-nap that comes with lethal injection and the serial beheading happening at the hands of ISIS.
No, the beheading is far quicker and far less painful to the executed person. It also requires the executioner to acknowledge the gravity of the act, unlike pressing a button from out of sight.
I'd rather be beheaded than subjected to the torture-to-death approach of the US execution industry.
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Slapping him in maximum security prison for life with no chance of parole might as well be death, but is something like 1/10th as expensive as execution.
Plus, in death he gets to be a martyr and his story paraded around on recruitment drives. But in life he can be forgotten and quietly keel over (after a couple years of a porkrind and bacon diet).
Yeah, I thought th ebest punishment for that turd would be to keep him alive as long as possible. The best of health care, then when his organs start to shut down, put him on machinery, and keep him on it ala Terry Schiavo, until he rots from proton decay.
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It isn't the execution that is expensive. It's all the appeals. The courts will collectively spend a few hundred million dollars before this pig fucker is finally put to death. The execution might cost a few thousand dollars, when accounting is done with it, but the real money goes into court accounting for lawyer time, judge time, yada yada yada.
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His brother got run over by a hit-and-run driver.
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His brother was the one who ran him over.
Brotherfucker.
Whether deserved justice or consummate punishment for the purpose of discouraging the offending act's own repetition, know that the happy times in your life are over.
Happy Days, even in a prison you will never leave, are off the menu for you, kind sir.
Re:USA in good company... (Score:5, Interesting)
"The great white devils executed him out of fear. Even with him helpless they feared him so much they killed him in his sleep."
VS
"They feared him so much they, uhm, tossed him in basement and forgot about him... like, uhm, birthday socks from your aunt..."
The latter has less of a holy war recruitment kick to it.
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Re:USA in good company... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is the problem with United States foreign policy expressed in seven words, right there...
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Re:The Death of Punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst criminals often live the best lives.
That is only true if they have power, and connections to the outside. Tsarnaev would have had neither. If he had been given life-without-parole, he would have spent it at ADX Florence [wikipedia.org], which has been described as "a cleaner version of hell".
The problem I have with his death penalty, is that it is sending the message that if you hate someone, you can kill them ... which was his rationale for the bombing in the first place.
Re: The Death of Punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
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And as each group kills members of the other group, they're both encouraged to continue killing in retribution. The mentality is the same for common street gangs and for nations.
Science magazine had a special issue on human conflict. http://www.sciencemag.org/site... [sciencemag.org]
tldr: Human groups have always killed each other. But they've also reconciled with each other.
The model is South Africa, where some of the worst criminals were pardoned in order to get a resolution.
No dipshit.. If you kill someone, we will kill you.
That worked when people were fighting with bows and arrows. Once modern weapons came along, that attitude wound up in wars in which both sides were massacred.
Re: The Death of Punishment (Score:4, Insightful)
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." --attributed to M. Gandhi.
Re:USA in good company... (Score:4, Insightful)
See also: List of countries by homicide rate. [wikipedia.org]
Looks like the countries with the highest homicide rates don't have the death penalty.
Most of Europe is in the lowest homicide rate end of that table. They don't have the death penalty in EU countries.
Are you drunk?
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And you point is what? The death penalty from 35 years ago acts as a deterrent to murderers today? You are drunk.
Low homicide rate. (Score:3)
Looks like the countries with the highest homicide rates don't have the death penalty.
Yup, just like countries with the lowest rates don't have it too:
Lichtenstein, Monaco, Iceland, France, Switzerland, Macau, Sweden...
(And except Guatemala, Lesotho, etc. which DO have death penalty, despite having high homicide rates).
If anything, that proves that criminality and death penality doesn't seem correlated.
The two things that have led me to oppose the DP (Score:5, Insightful)
1) I've come to distrust the government in general
2) I've been in jury deliberations twice. This was far more damaging to my faith in our justice system.
But I'm not going to lose sleep over this one.
Re:The two things that have led me to oppose the D (Score:4, Interesting)
However when there are clear cut cases, like this one, or timothy mcveigh in OK city. we should not hesitate.
Re:The two things that have led me to oppose the D (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh.
This guy is obviously a massive douche and murderer, and there's no doubt as to his guilt, but I think killing him doesn't reflect well on us as a society. To me, killing killers always had the same logic as suspending people who ditch school. It's like-- wait, what's the message here exactly?
Given the history of "humane" non-cruel, non-unusual tools for execution ("hanging! no wait, firing squad! no, we mean electrocution! Umm... lethal injection [thinkprogress.org]? Gassing [washingtonpost.com]?"), it strikes me as just one of the many feel-good but fucked up practices we haven't dropped yet.
Re:The two things that have led me to oppose the D (Score:5, Insightful)
The death penalty is not an effective deterrent against murder.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or... [deathpenaltyinfo.org]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-... [amnestyusa.org]
What deters murderers is not the penalty, but the likelihood of being caught.
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The death penalty is not an effective deterrent against murder.
You're mostly right, except of course it removes those who would commit the same crime again.
Re:The two things that have led me to oppose the D (Score:5, Insightful)
That's how I feel about it - some people simply do not deserve to live with the rest of humanity. There should never, ever be a chance that some people should ever have the possibility of afflicting more atrocities on society. I can can understand arguments about when it's perhaps not clear the perpetrator was guilty (and, of course, it sadly has happened before)... but of course, that didn't happen in this case.
People think it's all about punishment, but it's also about keeping those who'd violate your rights away from you.
I think all of your concerns can be addressed equally with execution or incarceration. So, why not chose incarceration? It's cheaper, it maintains a morally superior position for the justice system, and it can be reversed in the event a conviction is wrongful.
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Re:The two things that have led me to oppose the D (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with the death penalty is that there is no way to repair damage to people who were not guilty of the crime they were executed for. This happens way more often than anyone likes to admit.
With this case, do you want me to believe that rehabilitation is not possible? I say bullshit, especially when the person convicted was a minor at the time this happened with an adult influencing his behavior. Rehabilitation is possible until proven otherwise, and it was not attempted here.
Unfortunately, people in the US have been duped into thinking that the only purposes of a sentence are punishment and retribution.
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What deters murderers is not the penalty, but the likelihood of being caught.
And the tobacco companioes of all have gotten this one right. Practically all the advertisements over here display the "smomking may kill you" warning, not a single print ad I've seen has ever shown the "causes impotence" warning (which is just as frequently printed on the real boxes). Death is a long way off, and unlikely, so the average smoker doesn't care. Same with the death penalty.
Hang on... sooo... you are advocating a sentence of death by compulsory smoking?
Re:The two things that have led me to oppose the D (Score:5, Funny)
This is slashdot - the correct question is "Does he blend?"
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I've always felt that the death penalty is far preferable to a life in a cage. To me the cruelest thing they could do is stick him in a cell with a 300 pound faggot named Bubba and let them play house for the rest of his miserable life.
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This is the main reason why most other Western countries dropped the death penalty decades ago. This particular case is not a very convincing argument against the death penalty due to the severity of the crime and the killings that were carried out during the pursuit, leaving no reasonable doubt that they got the right guy. But many other cases in the US, some which eventually get overturned in the many
Re:The two things that have led me to oppose the D (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh.. You can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. In certain environments, that can also cause or risk your own death/health.
The problem is freedom, you cannot force it onto people and still be free. Sure it is a betrayal but lets be honest or perhaps realistic, it is only a betrayal by this guy and his brother (speed bump or whatever his name was). The rest of his family and all the others taken in as refugees, even if they are sympathetic by circumstance or familiar relation, haven't crossed that ideal of betrayal. This guy was brought in by his parents and likely not of his own choice although I doubt he rejected the idea. So lets be conscious about this enough to not allow corruption of blood.
And no, while a .22 will do the job just fine, I think it is important to give this guy every legal chance possible to dispel the concept of it being a show trial and summery execution. People have already stated they think he was set up. But a good and thorough appeals process along with exhaustive exercising of his rights will show not only that justice is fair, but that what he betrayed is better than him.
I feel he should've gotten life no parole. (Score:5, Insightful)
The dead do not exist for all their lives in a six foot by ten foot box. They do not weep for lost freedom, nor yearn for sunshine and gentle wind. They do not slip gradually to the madness of long isolation. Tsarnaev should be made to know these things.
Re:I feel he should've gotten life no parole. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tsarnaev should be made to know these things.
Why? To inflict as much anguish, stress, despair, and pain on him as you legally can get away with? That says more about YOU than anything else.
If he is imprisoned for life it should be simply because he is a threat to society.
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If Tsarnaev were to choose to commit suicide during a life sentence, I suspect he could find a way. Does that assuage your distaste for my motives?
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Re:I feel he should've gotten life no parole. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wasn't even going to attempt addressing the morality of the death penalty. I personally think the death penalty should be abolished because innocents are killed. I don't really object to it in principal as system of removing dangerous criminals that cannot be rehabilitated from society... but since there is no way of reliably determining those put to death are even actually GUILTY it is senseless to use it on anybody.
But its really beside the point.
The point of prison IS... no... scratch that... SHOULD BE to rehabilitate the prisoner, and to protect the public from prisoners who cannot be rehabilitated.
Desiring the imprisonment to be physically or mentally cruel to the prisoners serves no legitimate purpose; only sadism.
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"so that they merely never want to go back."
That kind of treatment is a double edged sword, it may make some go straight but it will turn the rest of them into heartless, merciless, vindictive psychopaths that will murder and/or die before they go back. I'm not saying prison should be a tropical resort but it also shouldn't be a training ground for worse criminals.
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That is what the death penalty is, is it not? State-sponsored murder?
No. Looking around a crowd, and setting a shrapnel bomb on the sidewalk next to children ... that's murder. Executing a death sentence as punishment for that cold, calculated act of deliberate cruelty and murder isn't murder. It's self defense, it's punishment, and its putting him out of our and his eventual misery. The people who'd rather put him into several decades of psychological torture, and make a long series of other people wait on him, watch him, protect him while the families of his victims, and
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Looking around a crowd, and setting a shrapnel bomb on the sidewalk next to children...that's murder
It is but ONE form of murder, ONE of MANY.
Executing a death sentence as punishment for that cold, calculated act of deliberate cruelty and murder isn't murder.
Yet, if his parents had executed him when he got home, for precisely the same reason: "as punishment for that cold, calculated act [...]" it would be murder again, right? So... apparently that "reasoning" isn't what makes it "not murder". What makes it "murder" is the trappings of legality and due process... its purely semantics.
murder is premeditated homicide that the state has declared illegal
execution is a specific premeditated homicide that the state has declar
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Re:I feel he should've gotten life no parole. (Score:5, Insightful)
So revenge is the motivation?
Hey, I don't mind. I'm cool with that, as long as people are willing to call a spade a spade and not pretend it has anything to do with justice.
50 shades of grape (Score:2, Interesting)
Death is too much publicity (Score:2)
He is a murderer and some will say he deserves to die. But - a death sentence will keep his name in the news for a long time. Better that he be locked up and forgotten.
Personally I do not support the death penalty. It is too rare to be a deterrent. Too irreversible if there is a mistake. Too barbaric for a civilized society.
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I'm oddly torn (Score:2)
I'm not sure how to feel, and I'm not sure how to feel about that.
On the one hand, I'm no fan of the death penalty, because I've read about far too many cases where such a sentence was handed down and the accused turned out to be innocent. We're freeing death row inmates on a regular basis now, paying them millions of taxpayer dollars for the period during which they were wrongly incarcerated. Worse, we've executed some who were convicted and later, posthumously, exonerated.
On the other hand, in this partic
Re:I'm oddly torn (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't condone the death penalty. In any case. There's the slightest chance you might be wrong.
I'm a Catholic, so that certainly colors my opinion. I don't believe any man has the authority to deliberately* take the life of another.
I just don't see the purpose of the death penalty. It is no deterrent. If you wrongfully execute someone, there is no chance for recompense. And life in a box sounds horrid; a fate worse than death. If you're an atheist, the murderer is getting off incredibly easy. If you're amongst the faithful, well, there is no escape from God's judgment, anyway.
There's just no point. Let him sit in a box and think about what he did for the next seventy-plus years. "Tax dollars" are hardly an issue.
* By "deliberately" I mean "with time to deliberate about it." I understand the necessity of taking a life to prevent someone from taking the lives of others. But if there's no immediate danger...
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I'm not sure how to feel, and I'm not sure how to feel about that.
On the one hand, I'm no fan of the death penalty, because I've read about far too many cases where such a sentence was handed down and the accused turned out to be innocent.
On the other hand, in this particular case, part of me wants to say "let him die, and if you can't figure it out, I'll drive up and do the deed." I don't know any of the victims. I wasn't on the jury. I don't know all of the facts. I presume him to be guilty (why?) and assuming he's guilty I want him executed (why?). It's not very often that I find myself contradicting my own strongly held principles.
I'm still not comfortable with the principal that the state should be killing people through the judicial system, I don't like the idea that society gets into the habit of having these discussions of whether someone deserves death.
Just say that killing someone with the objective of killing them (as opposed to winning a war or saving a hostage) is never acceptable. I think it's a lot healthier and what's the downside? I understand why the friends and families of victims might want vengeance, but I'm not sure
let's use the ultimate punishment... (Score:2, Funny)
Make him use nothing but Windows 8 for the rest of his life.
Good riddance (Score:3)
Unlike cases where there is a question of whether someone is guilty or not, there is no doubt in this case that he planted to bomb, killed at least three people, and maimed scores of others (including a lot of kids.)
If there is a chance of a conviction being overturned, I don't agree with the death penalty. But in a case like this, I'm all for it.
What sickens me is that despite the clear guilt, there are probably going to be years of appeals costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars before this sick bastard is put to death.
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Just for the record, what purpose does killing him serve?
Just for the record, what purpose does NOT killing him serve?
Just say no... (Score:4, Insightful)
... to revenge-killing. Particularly state-sanctioned revenge killing.
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Re:not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
In this particular case, most entities that oppose the death penalty for specific reasons, like those that are concerned for the reliability of justice and the danger of executing innocent people, are extremely unlikely to have grounds for such an objection, given the dramatic and highly public events that led to his eventual apprehension combined with his written words admitting to his actions.
I suspect that most of those who do object to the use of the death penalty for the first reason I mentioned probably wouldn't choose to stake their movement on this particular case, given the nature of what happened. Attempting to fight against it would probably cause more harm for the movement than good.
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I am opposed to the death penalty for exactly the reasons you give. In this case, I'm pretty much OK with it though. The only reservation I have is the high cost of execution when lifetime incarceration is cheaper. Maybe we should put him in a cell with Charles Manson instead.
You mean Hannibal Lecter. (Score:2)
FWIH, There are several analogs in Ft. Leavenworth that would do just as well.
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The only people that are interested in making a stand against the jury's decision in this particular case would be those opposed to the death penalty in all cases, basically those that do not believe that the State should kill people.
I'm not sure about that.
Bill and Denise Richards, the parents of 8-year-old Martin (the youngest bombing victim) were against the death penalty being applied in this case. Their opposition was based on a desire for closure. [businessinsider.com] They didn't want to see the case prolonged by the inevitable appeals and media attention that would be the result of a death penalty.
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The only people that are interested in making a stand against the jury's decision in this particular case would be those opposed to the death penalty in all cases, basically those that do not believe that the State should kill people.
And those who are opposed to the death penalty aren't allowed on capital crime juries. One reason to oppose the death penalty is that it's only decided by the dwindling number of people willing to impose it, who will increasingly fail to collectively represent the average citizen.
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You put your shit in my face, so fuck you for that.
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The Abrahamic god is a vengeful douchebag who demands blood, is the short answer.
His adherents are bloodthirsty and heavily into vengeance and keep telling us their god demands it.
From stoning to the death penalty, this is 100% about humans exacting retribution through violent means in the name of their god.
Either the humans are bloodthirsty savages, or god clearly is.
But the underlying justification is "god has commanded me to kill people in his name".
Ask yourself: why do we listen to deluded people who
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I live in the USA and I never laughed about the death penalty.
Re:Scary side of US (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand Europeans and others have difficulty understanding this. I'll explain:
We generally believe that certain crimes are so horrific that the only possible punishment is death. Unlike other places, our criminal justice system is not merely based around removing the threat from society, or rehabilitating them, but also around the idea of punishment.
Personally I find it horrific that in places like Norway someone like Brevik can be sentenced to only 21 years in prison for murdering dozens of people. This negates and ignores what he has done, and instead only focuses on rehabilitation, i.e., focusing on what this man can do in the future. The idea being that the past is past, and punishing someone won't bring back the people he killed.
This misses the point. Justice based upon the idea of punishing someone, as a part of retributive justice or deterrence, has a long history, and while continentals may disagree, it's what we in the US choose to do. We believe, or at least our court system does, that some people DESERVE to die for their actions.
Re:Scary side of US (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand Europeans and others have difficulty understanding this. I'll explain:
To be clear: polls show that about 1/3 of Americans [gallup.com] don't buy your logic. So while you may speak for many in the U.S., there is a substantial minority that disagrees.
We generally believe that certain crimes are so horrific that the only possible punishment is death. Unlike other places, our criminal justice system is not merely based around removing the threat from society, or rehabilitating them, but also around the idea of punishment.
Funny, that. The U.S. justice system has a long history of claiming that lex talionis [wikipedia.org] is no longer our operating principle. That's why we have departments of "corrections" where we supposedly "rehabilitate" people. But you implicitly are claiming that's all rhetoric -- that when it comes down to it, we're just after revenge.
After all, what other justification is there for punishment when it is not intended to rehabilitate?
This misses the point. Justice based upon the idea of punishing someone, as a part of retributive justice or deterrence, has a long history, and while continentals may disagree, it's what we in the US choose to do. We believe, or at least our court system does, that some people DESERVE to die for their actions.
I'm in the U.S. I used to be at least a nominal supporter of the death penalty. I remember having long debates with friends when I was younger, and I made similar arguments to what you do. I also came up with other tangential justifications, which often appear here on Slashdot, like "it'd be worse if I were kept in prison for life, so I'd rather die in those circumstances -- therefore we should kill them" or whatever.
But as I've grown older, I've realized that arguments in favor of the death penalty inevitably boil down to FOUR main justifications:
(1) I'm mad at that guy. That's essentially what you're endorsing -- somebody did something bad, so I'm mad and I'm gonna kill him.
(2) I'm afraid of that guy. This is the argument that some people are so evil and cannot be rehabilitated, so they should be "put down" for the good of society. That might be valid reasoning if there weren't an alternative -- but we have maximum security prisons now. We don't need to kill this person to protect us.
(3) I want to scare other people. This has nothing to do with the actual justice served on an individual, but rather the idea that the death penalty actually deters other criminals from committing murder. There are some studies that suggest the death penalty may have a minor effect as a deterrent; there are others that refute that claim and say there is no statistical effect. One this is clear: Murderers are deterred by fear that they will be caught and go to prison, but a distant possibility of a death penalty is less of a deterrent. Perhaps if we reinstituted public executions where we tortured people in Times Square before killing them in some horrific way, maybe it might deter somebody... but the death penalty is applied so rarely and randomly that it can't function as a realistic deterrent.
(4) We've always done it this way. That's basically your other argument: there's a long history of revenge killing by the state, so why not continue to do it? it's the same wacky logic that propagates all sorts of ridiculous and stupid traditions and keeps our society from getting better. "I'm gonna haze these young dudes, because I was hazed." "When I was first starting out, I had to work 60 hours each week on little pay, so why shouldn't I do the same to these stupid kids." Etc. Sometimes to improve society, it makes sense to interrogate our traditions and ask whether they're actually doing good things, or whether it might be better for everyone if we found another way
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What country has 52 states? Is this one of those 87.3 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot things?
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because it is not very nice when people come into your home and kill people at random is it.
You keep him in prison for the rest of his life with no possibility of parole.
The State should never ever have the ability to kill its own citizens, and that obviously includes criminals.
The trial was a farce, just like soviet-era show trials. It was about revenge not justice.
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A farce? Jesus, if you aren't going to try a mass murderer that you have videotape of committing the crime, who are you going to try? You want to just say "well done" and let him go for it again?
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No, something closer to a soviet-era showtrial would be 'diversity officers' and 'discrimination tribunals' in the ivy league.
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Screw that. Sometimes, you gotta do what's gotta be done. Septic systems need to be cleaned out, criminals need to be executed - stuff just has to be done. If you want to walk around feeling superior by not getting your hands dirty, go right ahead, but don't expect to win any arguments on morality.
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How dare you! He is a member of the religion of peace!
The Tsarnaev exemplifies how FUCKED UP the American government has become
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/29/tsarnaev-trial-tamerlan-testimony_n_7173250.html
The Russian intelligence agency, - the FSB, - had given the American government the dossier of the Tsarnaevs, prior to the Boston Marathon bombing
Along with the dossier, which includes an interview with a distant cousin living in Dagestan, another region in Russian, who said that Tamerlan had visited and sought an introduction to Islamic fighters,
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and we should thank the Liberals for such a _marvelous_ performance !
Not being up on American Politics, what is the link here?
Re:hardly surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
The link is that the conservatives blame everything bad that happens on liberal ideology when there's a Democrat in the White House, and the liberals blame everything on the conservative ideology when a Republican is in the White House, irregardless of what the rest of the government is actually doing.
Conservatives are stereotypically the party that wants to take the direct approach to solving problems, and prefer to spend tax money on helping winners: military, business, churches, prisons, etc.
Liberals are stereotypically the party that wants progressive solutions to problems, and prefer to spend tax money on helping losers: through education, labor unions, health care, environmentalism, community centers, etc.
So they both want essentially the same things... peace, prosperity, they just go about it different ways. Liberals would like to eliminate poverty by helping poor people become less poor; conservatives would prefer to eliminate poverty by eliminating poor people.
Because of things like this, conservatives view liberals as weak, and liberals view conservatives as afraid. And they like to point that out whenever they can.
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That sounds like the "country mouse" / "city mouse" view. I agree that to a country mouse, the vast majority of what the government does with your tax dollars looks like a pointless waste. Cities have quite different problems on a different scale than what independent rural societies deal with. I'm quite comfortable to admit that there are people much smarter than me working on those problems with my tax dollars, even if once in a while there are reports of corruption which was appropriately handled by s
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This might be news to you, but the FBI can't arrest people who haven't committed crimes. Crazy, I know, but "a distant cousin saying the guy is dangerous" doesn't meet the standard for detention. It meets the standard for investigation, and we did that, and golly it turned out the guy hadn't done any crimes yet. That's how it goes sometimes. The other 25,000 people who the FBI investigated and found nothing, those people didn't go on to bomb a foot race.
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Drone strikes that hit the wrong people, targetting wedding parties etc ie generally killing the wrong people, killing children because of who their parents are and calling them legitimate targets. Many others in numerous incidents your press do not report. It may not be random for the person giving the order it certainly is a random and arbitary death sentence for the poor sod on the receiving end.
Re:hardly surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to make sure I understand you here:
It is OK for Dzhokar to target a crowd of spectators because the U.S. military kills more people than it should with drone strikes?
There are similarities between Dzhokar killing civilian spectators and the U.S. military killing civilian spectators at a wedding.
The main difference is that the U.S. military will say, "We only intended to kill bad guys. We didn't intend to kill civilians."
This is subject to a just war analysis. A war is justified when the aggressor has tried every other reasonable approach, when the goal is justified, and the aggressor tries to minimize damages. I'm not convinced this is true for the drone attacks.
I'm not absolutely against the death penalty. I could accept it under 3 conditions: (1) The defendant must actually be guilty (2) The defendant must have had a fair trial (3) Other defendants who committed similar crimes must have gotten the same penalty.
I would compare the Boston Marathon killings to the Nusoor Square killings, where Blackwater private security contractors killed 17 people. My interpretation of the evidence is that the killings were unjustified and indiscriminate, and part of a pattern of such killings by Blackwater. One Blackwater contractor was sentenced to life in prison, and 3 others were sentenced to 30 years.
Dzhokar's death sentence fails my third condition. If we didn't sentence any of the Blackwater contractors to death, then we can't sentence Dzhokar to death.
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However you want to rationalize the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people on your hands, while wagging you finger at someone who killed....three people.
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Well, by that logic, it's fine for me to come into your house and kill you because the USA killed someone somewhere. Right? Logic doesn't matter, intent doesn't matter, just go off and kill people.
Re:hardly surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
AC hasn't exactly justified Tsarnaev - he has given food for thought. He last sentence, "Just something to think about." He makes it pretty clear that if we weren't such arrogant bastards ourselves, then we may have had more sympathy from the world at large when the terrorists hit us. And, there is some suggestion that if we were less overbearing overseas, then just MAYBE the terrorists wouldn't have hit us.
Food for thought, assuredly.
Is he right? Is he wrong? I can't say for sure. But he does offer food for thought.
Yeah, I'm aware that Muslim terrorists are waging war on three continents already, against people who ARE NOT arrogant, overbearing bastards with military bases located around the world. Maybe the terrorists would have hit the Twin Towers anyway, and maybe the Tsarnaev brothers would have bombed the Boston Marathon anyway. I can't say for sure.
Think about it though.
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"Just something to think about."
No, those are douchebag words, just like "I'm just asking questions". They attempt to put a cover over nonsense.
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It won't bring the three dead people back, it doesn't solve anything, and while his guilt is not in question it helps perpetuate a system that has flaws, which cannot be corrected if an innocent person spends his life in jail.
Why is cost a factor? Why do you prefer to watch him suffer in a cage forever? What would you prefer if he killed your kids? Would you like that horror to remain on this planet so that the victims families
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Doesn't need to bring the dead people back. Killing him and figuring out why people get radicalized doesn't have to be mutually exclusive either. It's not like that money is the only money in the world and it's magically gone if he dies.
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Even his parents have disowned him.
Far from it. [bostonglobe.com]
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And humanity is also wasted on those who have none. Do you propose we should give that up too?
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Well, no I didn't address most of your arguments since most of them were straw men, ad homenim and arguing from emotion. There's no point in me addressing pointless arguments.
As to your axiomatic position, what about imprisoning people that are innocent? Apparently that's fine.
It's not fine, but you do have the opportunity to de-imprison them and give some sort of compensation if you foul up. You can't un-execute someone.
Do you think THIS person that was JUST sentenced to death is innocent?
It seems unlikely
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We circle back to your ACTUAL issue when stripped of the sophistry which is systemic problems in the legal system.
Jesus Christ you're a moron. I even went and spelled out to you that that was EXACTLY my point and yet you keep on patting yourself on the back in a smug, selfcongratulatory manner because you have uncovered some deep truth I was hiding.
No wonder you didn't have any coherent points to make to any of my actual argument because you can't even recognise a bald statement of intent when it's right in
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Go on... I'm listening.
No you ain't. You're planning on nitpicking some tiny omission, blowing it up into a huge thing then swinging wildly round and accusing me of changing the topic whenever I clarify the point.
At least I assume that's your plan since that's what you've done so far on everything else. I assume you do it because it makes you believe you're smart, because it certainly doesn't contribute the debate.
I'm clearly not impressed with your moral position,
My moral position is that it's worse to exe
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blah
The fact that exhonerations happen mean that the system is not robust enough for the death sentence. It's useless exhonerating someone after killing them.
You can't be against a couple false executions every DECADE if you're completely fine with probably thousands and thousands of false imprisonments.
You have this strange attitude where if I'm against executions, I must be for false imprisonments or somehow an execution offsets false imprisonments. I'm going to say the same thing I've said 3 or four time