With the death penalty, he gets all of the above while he goes through the appeals process. He also gets to live every day he has left wondering if he will be put to death or not.
In general I don’t believe in the death penalty because too many irreversible mistakes have been made. However I firmly believe it is called for in this case. This terrorist was in pictures placing a bomb behind children. His legal team admitted guilt and he showed zero remorse. The jury followed the law and justice was served.
Ucbalumnus- in this case it was a requirement in order to be seated on the jury to be able to impose the death penalty, or at least not be against it. It wasn’t at the usual point where the lawyers on both side got to dismiss potential jurors during voir dire. To even get to that point a juror had to state they were not against the death penalty and had not made up their minds about his guilt or innocence. Maybe because it was a federal case with the death penalty as an option…
Seems like that tilts the playing field of juror selection in favor of the prosecution, due to association between views on the death penalty with general political views on police, prosecution versus defense, etc. that may affect a juror’s initial bias in the case.
Not everyone who is opposed to the death penalty is strongly enough opposed that s/he will refuse to convict someone who may face the death penalty in the sentencing phase.
Why? What is the point of this torture? Because that is what it is.
The use of solitary confinement in US prisons, like virtually everything else about US prisons, is disgraceful.
^^Are you saying that no matter what kind of crime a person committed, the person should not be incarcerated?
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This might actually be being done for Tsarnaev’s protection. I think it’s a good bet that he wouldn’t last 2 months before another prisoner shoved a shiv through his eyeballs and into his brain if he were placed in the general prison population. Solitary confinement is the only way he stays alive. Of course, I don’t really know much about Federal vs. state prison and under what conditions they use solitary confinement, but it’s probably only for unusual cases.
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If it’s too much for him to handle, Tsarnaev always has the option to not appeal his death sentence. That will end his “torture”, and in a lot more merciful fashion than his victims experienced.
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Between all the evidence and his own confession, I have no doubt that Tsarnaev is guilty, so I have no problem with a death sentence. I’d administer it myself and not lose any sleep. But in this case there’s probably a nice additional benefit to executing him quickly. If he’s alive, then some extremist group somewhere might take a bunch of hostages and try to barter for Tsarnaev’s release. This would be horrible situation for any future President to have to be in. If you ask me, in these types of cases it’s better to make a quick end to it. Perhaps they could be “compassionate” and allow Tsarnaev to freely mingle with the other prisoners and then let simply nature take its course, which would also cut down on a lot of the expenses that some people seem to be worried about.
Post #66, not only that he speaks English. Very useful for propaganda.
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mom2collegekids wrote:
It’s true that the jury members had to be “death qualified.” Sometimes having a DP qualified jury is desired because they are believed to be more of the “law and order” type of people.
Desired by the prosecution – the defense would desire the opposite. But if the prosecution dismisses all anti-death-penalty jurors and the defense dismisses all pro-death-penalty jurors, wouldn’t that mean make it impossible to seat a jury?
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Absolutely not.
Once a case has the DP on the table, the ONLY jurors that can be considered ARE DP qualified. The defense can only dismiss X number of jurors. The defense already KNOWS that it will ONLY have DP jurors to consider, so FROM THAT GROUP, it tries to seat the “best ones” for the defense.
No, of course not.
I am talking about the use of SOLITARY confinement.
You would probably be amazed how much it is used in our prisons, and how negative and long-lasting the effects of it are. In some extreme cases destroying people who haven’t actually been tried or convicted of anything.
This article is a horrifying read, although solitary plays only one part in it:
I agree with Consolation, and this is a view shared by people across the political spectrum. For example, here’s an Op Ed on the subject by George Will (someone whom I don’t agree with very often):
I think the death penalty is very appropriate. What we need is not to look for alternatives to DP because of the expense and hassle of the numerous appeals, but to streamline the process so that in cases such as this the sentence can be carried out in a timely manner.
Thank you, Consolation. I misunderstood your point. I agree with your post and with the opinion linked by nottelling. Solitary confinement is inhumane and must not be used for “rehabilitation” of prisoners who have a chance of being released into the society. Tsarnaev is a different story… hope his appeals dry out quickly.
@notelling, thanks for the link. An excellent piece, and like you I don’t say that about George Will very often. 
I checked my spam folder to see if our former acquaintance sent me anything nasty on this subject (as I already mentioned, I directed all of her emails to spam after she started sending me some links about the Ukraine conflict). As I expected, the anti-US propaganda is already screaming that Tsarnaev was the product of the CIA - really?!!! - and it was a well-orchestrated plot to rally the world against Russia and its improving relations with Chechnya. Wow.
Jeez Louise, that is very scary, Bunsen.
Post #74, is he Russian? I wasn’t sure if he is.
Nottelling, I hope it does not go far… It seems like Moscow is trying to distance itself from Tsarnaevs:
"I’d administer it myself and not lose any sleep. But in this case there’s probably a nice additional benefit to executing him quickly. If he’s alive, then some extremist group somewhere might take a bunch of hostages and try to barter for Tsarnaev’s release. "
I agree that I could administer it myself and not lose any sleep. To your second point, extremists who want to take hostages to barter for Tsarrnaev’s release could have already done so. They wouldn’t have needed to wait for a verdict and it wouldn’t have mattered what the verdict was (meaning life sentence vs death penalty). Extremists don’t need “excuses.”
It’s always weird to me how different states work out so differently here. Oklahoma and Virginia seems to execute death row inmates quite quickly while states like Pennsylvania being sentenced to death doesn’t ever seem to come to fruition. Seems like some states should get rid of capital punishment simply because they can’t do it.