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Guilty
By adamg on Wed, 04/08/2015 - 2:13pm
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Good Riddance
Hopefully the jury does the right thing and sentences him to death so we don't have to waste taxpayer dollars.
Define
Define "waste taxpayer dollars" when keeping him in supermax for a lifetime would likely have cost less than this trial - and this trial might have been avoided had they taken the death penalty out of the equation?
My opinion?
You're probably both talking out of your hats on this one. I mean, I really doubt that either of you knows what it costs to execute someone (it's not cheap, given appeals and the rest of the process) or what it costs to keep them in supermax forever (he's only 21 years old).
Swirly's right on this one. I
Swirly's right on this one. I took Criminology as an undergrad, and one of the first things we learned, if you care about cost (of trial, appeals, counsel, death row incarceration v. lifetime incarceration), is just abolish the death penalty.
It's always been true, and nothing's changed since I took that class: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
I'm against the death penalty
I'm against the death penalty but can appreciate a reasonable argument for it. What I don't get, however, is the fixation on saving taxpayer dollars. There are a lot of people we could execute to save taxpayer dollars, but that doesn't make it right.
People say it to sound virtuous
People say it to sound virtuous. "Let's save taxpayer dollars", who can argue with that? They don't want to cop to less noble-sounding reasons.
Justice vs Accounting
If accounting is really what gets the guy above's feathers in a titz, then the Feds should have accepted a plea for life in prison without parole. That's an admission of guilt, and it means there's no recourse for costly appeal.
The death penalty isn't the end of the legal process here, rightfully, and there will be years of stalling and legal appeals now, no matter the verdict.
Personally the only thing bugging me about the death penalty in this open and shut case is the psychopath's belief in martyrdom. I think, at the least, we should take that option away from him and any of his delusional supporters. They see death in jihad as salvation, so put them in a pen for a life worth of thinking about it.
"the psychopath's belief in martyrdom"
I don't think we really know that he has any such belief. Because he wrote it on the side of a boat? Eh. People spew platitudes all the time, a lot of people are spewing platitudes in this thread. They do it without really thinking about them. It's quite possible that the bunk about martyrdom is just a platitude phrase that Tsarnaev could cough up and spew out in an extreme moment, without really thinking about what it meant. It certainly didn't fit with the pattern of his life up to that point, so why should we think it represents his mindset?
I don't think we know what his beliefs and motives are, and that's my main reason for opposing the death penalty. He recites a few platitudes, people judge him according to unexamined stereotypes, and there's no understanding in any of it. I don't think he's a normal person who just got a little bit confused; OTOH I also don't see the evidence that he's a hardcore jihadist. I don't know what he is, and I want to know, not just slap a handy (but likely incorrect) label on him and have done with it. I don't want to live in a bunker, I want to stand on Boylston Street and cheer on Marathon Monday, and have a reasonable chance of ending the day alive and with all my limbs. I think the best way to ensure that is to start by understanding the problem. The problem's in Tsarnaev's head right now. Kill him and our chance of understanding it is over.
I did a paper on the death penalty for a graduate ethics class
After looking at statistical data from California, Texas, and North Carolina it was clear it depends on the age of the accused and the state of penalty.
California, who hasn't executed anyone since 2006, spends Billions on jailing offenders.
deathpenaltyinfo is an anti-death penalty group and hardly a reliable source for unbiased information.
According to the California state auditor, it costs about $50,000 per year to house an inmate.
Once an inmate reaches age 55, cost to house inmates triples to $150,000 per year.
California has more than 2,600 juveniles serving life sentences (without parole) – these prisoners will cost an estimated $6.4 Billion to house.
NC spends an average of $2.16 Million per execution
A life sentence for a 25 year old who lives to be 65 will cost approximately $2.5 Million
edited to add- that all being said, cost is the among the least interesting/important things about whether or not someone deserves to be put to death to focus on.
California is a very bad example
California spends billions because it jails people for live for things that sane states don't.
These costs have nothing to do with the death penalty as many serving life sentences were not even jailed for violent felonies - they just racked up three or more non-violent ones.
$50K a year sounds like a lot - how many millions have and will be spent on Tsarnaev seeking the death penalty? Think about it. Do the math.
A) Yes i understand that Cali
A) Yes i understand that Cali spends billions because of their inane 3 strikes laws, that doesn't negate the fact that they are in fact spending that kind of money for lifetime incarcerations. Also, the fact they California's studies have shown that once an inmate hits 55 the costs to house them triple, it is obvious that housing an inmate for life is VERY expensive.
B) I did do that math - in NC it would cost about $400,000 less to execute him. Numbers for MA are obviously not available.
Those were obviously very short snippets from a long research paper, but the fact is that the difference in execution v imprisonment is often not as significant as anti-death penalty advocates would like people to think.
I'm not here to advocate for or against the morality of the death penalty, but monetarily the numbers are far more similar than people believe.
Please.
His actions were worthy of the death penalty and should always have been an option for a jury to decide upon at trial no matter what the cost.
Okay then
Enjoy your martyr! Give the people and the boy what they want.
All I said
Is that it should always have been an option and not taken off the plate entirely. He's no martyr and I could care less if he gets the death penalty from the feds or the death penalty from a fellow prison mate. Solitary in a cold lonely cell is cool, too, but yes, I would prefer to see him dead.
"He's no martyr"
You don't get to decide that. Thus, we shouldn't give him that opportunity.
Kind of a catch 22 isn't it?
He is probably scared shit about losing his life. By playing the "I'm a martyr" card, he can fool us in to arguing against the death penalty.
Is he though?
His screed in that boat, his actions he's on trial for, and throwing away his other life seem to tell me different.
And if that's not the case, you're basically arguing that he was forced into doing these things out of a greater fear of death [from his brother], which would exclude the death penalty if.
I don't think he's scared of death, since death while jihading in the name of Allah is some sort of fast pass to 72 virgins.
Remember, he believes he's going to heaven.
We don't know what he believes......
Most of these pseudo Islamic maggots are useless failures in life who say things for reasons beyond our comprehension and theirs.
I say call his bluff and kill the POS.
...kidding, right?
Tsarnaev didn't attend a mosque. He didn't live the life of an observant Muslim by any of its various definitions. Why on earth do you think you can pull out some pop-culture "this is what Muslims believe" crap and tell us that this is what he believes?
Not his decision
He doesn't get to "fool us" into having a discussion about where our morales lie.
we aren't discussing Islamic faith though.
We (or I) am saying that whatever he thinks he is, he isn't. He's a fraud and a loser. He has no faith worth discussing. He is no martyr. And about those people who think he may be a martyr? Who cares about them. Hell, there are people who think this whole thing was staged. Why waste our time discussing them?
So who are "all those people"?
Really, where's the world-wide groundswell of belief that he's a martyr?
It's a strawman argument, "don't kill him because it would make him a martyr". People who say that are parroting something they heard someone else said, without any awareness of world events. Show me some evidence that there's some groundswell of opinion in the Muslim world that Tsarnaev is a "martyr".
You are massively missing the point here
We don't get to decide this. He doesn't get to decide this.
But there are disaffected youngsters flying off to Turkey to join ISIL who might just see it that way. Might relate to his "struggle" etc.
Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in part because of Waco. Anybody see that coming? It only takes a few disaffected homocidal losers ...
Show me the "disaffected youngsters"
I keep hearing this assertion, but no one has produced any evidence. If it exists, I'd love to see it. Speculating about how "disaffected youngsters...might just see it that way" fails to convince. Show me any evidence that it's actually happening, or stop using this as an argument for what should be done with Tsarnaev.
Just google it already
You are capable of doing that to find your own evidence - particularly when the phenomena is widespread!
There are numerous reports in the US ... and news stories about the best approach to prevention.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/06/isis-arrested-terro...
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/3/minnesota-s-somalicommun...
Just read already!
I wasn't saying "show me the evidence that young nitwits want to go off and become jihadis", Swirl. I was saying "show me the evidence that Tsarnaev is influencing young nitwits to go off and become jihadis". That was your argument, that he might be influencing them. So show me any evidence that he has influenced anyone, apart from people blowing hot air on forums like this.
swrrly, he is not a boy and
swrrly, he is not a boy and was not a boy when he murdered and harmed innocent people. He was an adult. Just stop.
The law is not based on your "shoulds"
...and during a trial, it's the job of a jury to render a verdict, not decide a penalty. Verdict first; if guilty, then penalty. Learn how the system works before you decide your idea is so much better.
if someone believes that this
if someone believes that this person deserves the death penalty, then money spent to keep him alive as long as possible is wasted money. however, money spent toward the goal of putting him to death is not wasted.
Except when money is involved
Since money is involved, we can equate the money to kill him (which includes employing all the people necessary to get him through all the obligate (and sometimes additional) appeals before we can actually kill him) to the money it costs to keep him forever in a cell (where properties of scale apply since we don't have to build a jail just for him).
It is cheaper to add him to a jail than it is to attempt to kill him. Thus, no matter what your "belief" on the death penalty, in terms of costs, we spend more money killing him than not. If you're fiscally concerned, spending any more money on him than any other possibility would be wasteful. QED, killing him is factually wasteful for someone actually concerned about money and not just seeking revenge.
Sorry, let me try again.
Sorry, let me try again.
Let's say we have this situation:
Hamburger: $2
Pasta: $10
If I don't want a hamburger, but I do want some pasta, this is how that breaks down:
$2 Hamburger = Waste of money
$10 Pasta = Not a waste of money
This is true, despite the fact that the hamburger would be less money. Get it now?
Where are the goal posts?
Who cares what you want if the goal was to end your hunger?
I covered your desire for pasta and not hamburgers in my last sentence. If your determination of waste is that you WANT pasta and you DON'T WANT hamburger, then it wouldn't matter if hamburgers were $10 and pasta was $2 or $100 and $0 or $0 and $100. You're just looking for pasta at any actual cost. That is not an issue of waste. If someone offered you a hamburger for $0.01, but you said "No, that's be a waste since I don't want a hamburger I want pasta and I'd gladly pay $100 for it!" then you're not arguing about fiscal waste. You're just covering up your actual argument of preference/taste with stolen language about money to make it seem like a great choice because you didn't want to "waste" the penny.
But in actuality, the fiscal argument is simply about solving your hunger. If the hamburger and pasta achieve the same goal in terms of ending your hunger, then you have to compare the money to determine if you should take the hamburger or pasta.
If we can lock him up and
If we can lock him up and throw away the key. Then it would be an preferable punishment. Death is far too easy. He should live a long, but miserable life reflecting on his actions. That along with the possibility of the wrongly convicted is what once put me against the death penalty.
But short of an Illuminati level conspiracy, he is culpable. And then there's the fact I learned about Charles Manson. With enough time, anger towards him in the decades will fade. There's already people protesting for him. I remember news of even a fan club for him. I can't trust life without parole as truly a lasting punishment nor a fully miserable one.
Take him out now. I don't want to read some article 20-30 years down the line of some trying to marry him and trying bare a child from him.
No parole eligibility, either
Unlike Manson and Sirhan Sirhan, Tsarnaev will never be eligible for parole and there will be no hearings to dredge up his existence.
Kill him and he is a martyr. Stuff him away in a small box and we will hear little or nothing until his demise.
EDIT: whoh - parallels to Sirhan Sirhan are kind of creepy
Manson
Manson was sentenced to death in California court. That was commuted to life in prison when the Supreme Court mistakenly and temporarily ended capital punishment. California was forced to re-sentence him to life with the possibility of parole based on their at the time legal standard. If justice had been served he would have been executed years ago. It was his sentence, his guilt was confirmed at appeal, and a later corrected supreme court decision forced the state to change his sentence while preventing restoration of that sentence after the settled case law was instituted.
I can understand that you may be against the death penalty, but that does not permit you to choose which facts you want to present and which you would like to ignore to make your current point. You are too good for that. Healthy debate requires we are honest in our arguments, not just trying to win. Trust is borne of such behavior.
This is why I do not trust either the right or the left. To them, it's all about winning.
Idea
Sentence him to life but leave him in general population.
No appeals and he's dead in 2 weeks.
Problem solved.
fan clubs for Manson
existed at the time of the trial - kind of the cause of the trial really (the Family). He's never not had supporters. They're interested in him now because he's a killer, not because they think he's innocent. Death wouldn't have and will not change that either - look up fan sites for Ted Bundy, who was executed. Not a deterrent.
Manson was also actually sentenced to death and when that was appealed in California, his sentence was commuted automatically, making him now eligible for parole. It would have been better for him to have been sentenced to life without parole - then his victim's families wouldn't have to keep testifying at his parole hearings.
Death won’t deter their
Death won’t deter their supporters. It is to keep him to enjoying their support. From one of them finding a way to marry him. I don’t want to give any chance some 2 or 3 decades down the road someone saying how he's changed and deserve some love in his life or something.
He deserves a long, long time in a box with minimal contact with the world and the world should never think about him again. But I'm not confident in the system will do that, so the next best thing is making him no longer exist.
Manson's broken engagement
Did you hear the punchline to that?
http://nypost.com/2015/02/08/charles-mansons-fiancee-wanted-to-marry-him...
(NY Post picked to be as sleazy as possible ...)
I might feel sorry for him if he wasn't Charles Manson!
Huh, I didn't heard about
Huh, I didn't heard about that. It makes me feel a little better. But I'm still viewing he needs to die. I still seen too many news stories some some serial killer getting married and even spawning a kid. And unfortunately, I don't think Tsarnev's fan club are all looking to take advantage of his corpse for fun and profit.
Because those mandatory appeals
that will kick in should he be sentenced to death are totally free, not!
Lock him up and throw away
Lock him up and throw away the key. He goes in alive, he comes out dead. Same net result.
Well said
.
Death is the easy way out.
Death is the easy way out. Let him rot in a cell in solitary 23 hours a day for the next 50 or 60 years.
People who cry for the death
People who cry for the death penalty don't really seem to understand how death works.
People who complain about the death penalty
have never spent 10 minutes in the hole.
It's not about the money. It
It's not about the money. It's about justice for the victims, dead and alive, and their families.
Explain
What difference does it make either way? Nothing will magically bring back anybody. The guilty verdict means that he will never see the light of day anyway.
Retribution is not justice.
That would make us just as
That would make us just as evil as he is.
Guilty on all counts
30 separate charges, guilty on each one. Wow. Only two years ago.
Short Trial
I've been surprised at how quick everything has been. Not even two years and the brief 16 day trial is over. I was expecting this to take far longer.
This is just the warmup.
Now comes the penalty phase, which is where the defense will bring out whatever they can.
and you know
if the death penalty is given... we're going to have years of appeals. So we're not done yet with this..
There was so much suspense
Didn't the defense on Day One say he was guilty?
My fear is that if we just
My fear is that if we just sent him to prison he could be responsible for getting more people hurt went his fellow wack jobs take hostages and demand we free him. Give him the death penalty,expedite his appeals,kill him and the problem is solved.
I could be wrong, but...
...I don't see that happening. His story so far does not seem to have inspired anyone; if anyone's going to take hostages to get a prisoner freed, it'll be someone who's actually useful to them, not Tsarnaev. And once he's in prison...well, put it this way, when was the last time you heard about the recent doings of Ted Kaczynski, Eric Rudolph, Terry Nichols, etc.? They don't exactly have a platform to evangelize once they're in there.
My tiny media coverage pet peeve
For some reason, I am irritated at the media coverage purporting to describe Tsarnaev's appearance and demeanor in the courtroom. Given everything he's done, he probably ought to be weeping and retching 24/7, but realistically that's not going to happen. As such, telling me that Tsarnaev seemed "punkish" or had "swagger" is pointless, unless he did something specific and unusual.
"He showed no emotion"
How many times have you seen that phrase connected to high-profile killers on trial? Pet peeve of mine too. It may be a statement of fact, but does it really tell us whether or not somebody is a sociopath? It seems like it's just designed to push our buttons.
Tired
Is anyone else as woefully tired of seeing this murderer's face? In newspapers, TV, Twitter. I am so sick of it. We had that whole "celebrity" kerfuffle with the RS cover, but the ongoing publication of his mug is exhausting.
I want this wrapped up and him locked up. Something I like about our supermax prisons is there are never any photos of the prisoners released to the public. No one knows what those bombers look like today. We get to bury them, so to speak, from our minds. This alleviates trauma. I don't want to have to see his face on Marathon Monday.
Agreed! I'll be cheering and
Agreed! I'll be cheering and supporting a relative of mine who is running for a charity for which she has raised thousands of dollars to help people who have potentially fatal illnesses. Someone who is doing GOOD in this world as opposed to EVIL. I will certainly NOT be giving one thought about this despicable coward or his hateful brother.
Praying for him.
I'm a consistent pro-life sort of person: no convenience abortions, no coerced euthanasia, no death penalty. We all knew that he was guilty; hell, he confessed. I'm praying for Life w/out Parole. Possibly in a prison where he gets Structure, and, possibly, a better meaning for his life.
The Sentencing Theater is going to be Nuts. Am Dreading It.
"a better meaning to his life"
While there are some prison programs that can lead to personal improvement (for example, the Dhamma Brothers program), if Tsarnaev goes to supermax he will not have access to any of them.
Something that cannot be said
Something that cannot be said enough is this coward killed his own piece of poop brother. (No loss) This should haunt him and the leeches and criminals of his family. Secondly we have to screen refugees much, much better.
Screening refugees
He came to the US at the age of, what, nine years old? Exactly what "screening" would you have done to determine where he'd be today?
May you rot in prison,
May you rot in prison, Tsarnaev.
Although, some news outlet/network will make millions in ad revenue after scoring a TV interview with him years from now.
throw him in general population
for a few days and the other inmates will take care of the death penalty for the state for nothing.