Now that he admits he did it, what next?

By adamg on Thu, 03/05/2015 - 7:55am

Boston Strong sign across from courhouse where Tsarnaev is on trial

Workers at the construction site across from the courthouse have a message for Dzokhar. Photo by Manu.

Tsarnaev is an engima, the Globe reports.

No, he's just a little murdering scum, Kevin Cullen writes. The first day's testimony would back that up, the Herald reports. Gelzinis concentrates on the survivors, one of whom writes about coming to terms with seeing Tsarnaev.

The Herald looks at the defense strategy to save Tsarnaev's life.

WBUR provides a who's who of the trial. The Herald tells us about the jurors.

WBUR has live coverage of the Tsarnaev trial at the Moakley Courthouse.

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Comments

Don't Kill Him

By BostonDog
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 7:57am

Death is about the only thing he wants and that's the first thing he should be denied. He could have plea bargained life in jail but he would rather make everyone go though this long costly procedure. (As is his right, BTW.)

I don't want him dead. I want him in a jail. I want them to take away his reading material, his letters of support, and any religious documents he might be clinging to for help and inspiration. He can have children's books showing nothing but optimism and expectations of great things ahead. Get him out of the news and into a cell where he'll soon be forgotten and a inspiration to no one.

In other words... he was

By Refugee
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 8:13am

In other words... he was actually a suicide bomber who became a mere regular bomber because he had to make a quick trip to pick up a gallon of milk, so he should be denied the death penalty despite his lawyers protests?

No, he considers himself a martyr...

By FlyingToaster
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 9:04am

... and wants to be an inspiration to others to martyr themselves in the name of whatever crazy ideology he subscribes to.

Let's not give him that gift.

I want him to spend the next 70 years staring at 4 concrete walls and reading out of the prison library. Guys growning old in prison are an inspiration to nobody.

"whatever crazy ideology he subscribes to"

By anon
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 9:09am

Thanks John Kerry. I think we all know what that ideology is.

Unclear on this point

By anon
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 8:54am

> He could have plea bargained life in jail

Could he? There were reports in January suggesting that his lawyers offered a guilty plea in exchange for life without parole, and that the DOJ refused to take the death penalty off the table.

This was reported in multiple places -- Google "Tsarnaev plea deal" -- but it was all unnamed sources and not quite coming out and saying it.

If this deal were on the table, the prosecutors should have taken it.

Kudos to the construction workers

By moxie
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 8:16am

Nice touch, and thanks!

yes, thank you

By anon
Fri, 03/06/2015 - 9:09am

For doing your damnedest to ensure he gets a retrial for having an biased jury pool.

Well done indeed.

FYI, the globe and wbur have

By gotdatwmd
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 8:34am

FYI, the globe and wbur have started what will be a daily (or almost daily) podcast that covers each part of the trial called Finish Line. You can subscribe to it via itunes

yikes

By Malcolm Tucker
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 11:07am

That's a bit morbid, isn't it?

No worse than some of the

By roadman
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 11:15am

tweets Channel 7 was broadcasting from the trial yesterday afternoon. Pathetic how the media is working overtime to keep this story in the forefront.

thank you roadman

By cybah
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 2:09pm

I thought I was the only one who thought this.

I follow many news people on twitter. After yesterday, I'm really considering unfollowing many of them. I really don't need or want the play by play. I live here in Metro Boston, and was around during the bombing, I really don't need ever single detail about it re-released.

I understand there are parties who really dig this stuff, but is it really necessary? Make the information avaliable for those who are interested to go seek it out, but not put every little detail out there.

(I also feel the same way about ANY trial.. Hernandez trial is another one where reporters do the play by play by play on twitter).

I also understand that there is some news worthiness of this story, but in my opinion, I think it's doing more harm than good. Opening closed wounds. and giving Tsarnaev the publicity I think he may want.

They're the opening statements of the trial, not a "re-release"

By lbb
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 2:29pm

It is normal for the opening statements of a trial to constitute a rehash of what occurred. It's ok if you don't want to watch; you have options that allow you to not do that. But to chide the media for reporting on the opening statements of a major trial as if it's old news? No, you're wrong there. The media are reporting on something that's happening right now.

I didn't say that

By cybah
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 2:45pm

I never said it was "old news". And my chide is the play by play. not the story itself.

I don't think you're on twitter so I don't think you understand what I mean by the play by play of it and how very tiring it can get very quickly.

And yes I am aware i have options.. unfollowing folks is one.

Isn't that the nature of Twitter?

By lbb
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 3:08pm

I am "on Twitter" meaning I have a twitter account, but I'm not on it all the time. I check Twitter when I want to get updates on something that is happening and where people on the scene can have useful information. It was very useful this past month to get T status updates, and it's been a real lifesaver (literally) during disasters. But I wouldn't use it for something that I didn't want that kind of "play by play" updates on.

well

By cybah
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 3:35pm

long before any trials were clogging up my feed, I used twitter just like you do.

See my issue?

I want to stay connected with newsies, but I don't want the play by play. So my choices are just deal with it (and ignore twitter during business hours), or unfollow newsie and potentially lose out on important news (that isn't related to both trials) that I do want to see.

Hard decision to make.

The tweets I saw

By roadman
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 5:05pm

sure didn't ~~sound~~ look like they were taken from opening statements to me. And the fact that Channel 7 was running video of the Marathon finish line immediately after the bombings as a backdrop only added, if you'll pardon the phrase, insult to injury.

And I know some of you are reading this and thinking "Why I didn't just shut the TV off?" Wasn't possible, as the TV was in the waiting room of my dialysis clinic.

Why Tsarnaev shouldn't be executed

By lbb
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 9:32am

A friend who's a mental health professional said something that I find convincing. He said that we need to understand what went on in his head and why it happened. This is the only way we will really be effective in stopping these attacks. You can't guard every inch of the Marathon route, and you can't stop people from making IEDs. We have to work instead on stopping people from wanting to destroy.

And in response to the inevitable, "I know why he did it, it's because of Islam/drugs/video games/the Teletubbies/some other ridiculous theory that I just made up" -- no, you really don't know why. The note in the boat doesn't tell the story, any more than his school days at Rindge and Latin or his brief stint at UMass Dartmouth. All the people who actually knew the guy don't know, how can you possibly think that you do? This knot has yet to be unraveled. Kill him, and you lose that opportunity.

yeah

By cybah
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 9:40am

I am curious too.. what happened. Just seemed like one day he went from typical stoner college kid to terrorist. Something happened to him at some point..

Would be interesting to see what goes on in his head.. from a psychological point of view.

Valuable information

By The Pettiest Officer
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 11:54am

We now have all these disaffected immigrant vaguely Islamic teens looking for an identity who are hopping planes to Turkey and joining ISIL.

They are not much different from this guy ... young, isolated, seeking an identity, fed idealistic bullshit over the web or from friends/brothers.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

By lbb
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 1:16pm

Clearly you don't understand the difference between trying to understand a problem, and blowing a lot of predigested popular media hot air about it. No, you DON'T know why he did it. You DON'T know what his deal is. Rather than trying to understand the actual problem, you just want to stuff it in a nice pidgeonhole, assign it a sound bite, and turn off your brain. Understanding is the key to dealing with difficult problems. Babbling newspeak and turning off your brain isn't.

Or one

By anon
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 4:30pm

could accuse you of trying to find a scapegoat and rationalize this terrorists actions. Keep grasping for straws.

Only if one was an idiot

By lbb
Fri, 03/06/2015 - 10:49am

So, if I'm "trying to find a scapegoat", as you put it, just who would that be? And if I'm trying to "rationalize this terrorists[sic] actions", just how have I done that?

I'm not grasping at straws, not in the least. I'm stating why, in my opinion, it would be better to not execute Tsarnaev. Feel free to formulate your own opinion, if you can.

Too simplistic

By anon
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 12:31pm

I think it's far too simplistic to say he was a "typical college stoner kid" who suddenly one day immediately changed into a terrorist, like flicking a light switch on. It seems more likely he was raised from the beginning in an atmosphere that nurtured the "terrorist inclinations" for lack of a better phrase. We know what the older brother was like, and from what we have seen of the mother, she doesn't seem so great either. If anything, it seems the "college stoner" thing was more of a phase or attempt to fit in.

Yeah

By anon
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 1:03pm

I wouldn't call him a "typical college stoner kid," either. That's how he presented himself to the public, but he came from an incredibly dysfunctional family. Just because he was gifted at slipping under the radar at school doesn't undo the damage of a lifetime of abuse, neglect, radical ideologies, and mental illness in the home he was raised.

He is ultimately responsible for his actions and choices- I'm not excusing them in any way, as plenty of people from awful backgrounds manage to not maim and murder the masses- but there's a reason he was susceptible to bad ideas, and it's because he was a broken kid who needed an explanation as to why others had and he did not. Unfortunately, he chose a very wrong explanation.

Good distinction

By lbb
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 1:18pm

Too many people don't get the difference between reasons and excuses. We need to be open to understanding his reasons. Reasons aren't excuses.

thats

By cybah
Thu, 03/05/2015 - 2:17pm

kinda what I was getting at.. There's more to this story than my simplistic explanation. That's kinda my point.

PS - Only got that opinion of him from the news media and their interviews from classmates.. So either it was a front, or he was really like that, or was a lot smarter than many of us give him credit for (meaning he put up a good front)