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Bomber - Guilty

we should maintain the death penalty until - on a state by state basis - voters agree to rescind it. no court trickery. death is not "cruel or unusual" as a punishment. it was happening before the founding fathers put pen to paper.

i'm personally against the death penalty - i believe it consistutes "evidence destruction" since a convicted felon is able to shed light on past crimes he may have committed.

but until and unless voters lawfully repeal or suspend it, the courts shouldn't engage in jury nullification.
 
as seen on tv said:
we should maintain the death penalty until - on a state by state basis - voters agree to rescind it. no court trickery. death is not "cruel or unusual" as a punishment. it was happening before the founding fathers put pen to paper.

i'm personally against the death penalty - i believe it consistutes "evidence destruction" since a convicted felon is able to shed light on past crimes he may have committed.

but until and unless voters lawfully repeal or suspend it, the courts shouldn't engage in jury nullification.
Click to expand...

I oppose the death penalty for the same reason I oppose abortion. The taking of human life for reasons other than self-defense is not justified.
 
as seen on tv said:
we should maintain the death penalty until - on a state by state basis - voters agree to rescind it. no court trickery. death is not "cruel or unusual" as a punishment. it was happening before the founding fathers put pen to paper.

i'm personally against the death penalty - i believe it consistutes "evidence destruction" since a convicted felon is able to shed light on past crimes he may have committed.

but until and unless voters lawfully repeal or suspend it, the courts shouldn't engage in jury nullification.
Click to expand...

I am against it how it is generally applied in this country. Often circumstantially. Often the person does not have adequate representation, etc.

But, in cut and dried cases such as these, where there is no doubt at all - that this is the guy. Not just beyond reasonable. Beyond any doubt possible - then yes, I support it. but, I think it needs to be done quickly. Fast track any appeals, get the whole thing wound up on a few months and call it a day.

I don't really see the destruction of evidence perspective. Maybe in a serial killer standpoint. And then if you want to argue that it would make sense to give him life to get him to spill the beans.. I could go for that I guess.

But, then when it comes to this guy - I already feel like it is a shame they didn't find him a few days later when he would have continued to bleed and succumbed to infection and was already dead. Or too bad he wasn't a victim of some type of medical malpractice, or that he didn't stick his head up out there in front of a cop with an itchy trigger finger. That fact that he is even still breathing is offensive. He killed people in an incredibly horrific way and maimed hundreds more. Death can not come too soon for one such as he.
 
connieb said:
I am against it how it is generally applied in this country. Often circumstantially. Often the person does not have adequate representation, etc.

But, in cut and dried cases such as these, where there is no doubt at all - that this is the guy. Not just beyond reasonable. Beyond any doubt possible - then yes, I support it. but, I think it needs to be done quickly. Fast track any appeals, get the whole thing wound up on a few months and call it a day.

I don't really see the destruction of evidence perspective. Maybe in a serial killer standpoint. And then if you want to argue that it would make sense to give him life to get him to spill the beans.. I could go for that I guess.

But, then when it comes to this guy - I already feel like it is a shame they didn't find him a few days later when he would have continued to bleed and succumbed to infection and was already dead. Or too bad he wasn't a victim of some type of medical malpractice, or that he didn't stick his head up out there in front of a cop with an itchy trigger finger. That fact that he is even still breathing is offensive. He killed people in an incredibly horrific way and maimed hundreds more. Death can not come too soon for one such as he.
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asot's top 10 legalistic arguments - as public defender - why Tsarnaev should be spared the death penalty

10 - "it will inflame muslim radicals overseas, and lead to more hostages, beheadings, and burning people alive"

9 - "life in prison is worse than death for someone like this. he's young and straight and horny"

8 - "it costs more taxpayer dollars to execute someone (considering appeals and hearings) than to simply give them life in prison"

7 - "killing tsarnaev won't be deterrent to the next terrorist. it will be an enticement"

6 - "we should put michelle obama in charge of prison cafeteria food, to increase the punishment level"

5 - "make him run a marathon on the same day every year, just as a reminder"

4 - "give him a computer and a facebook account in jail, and monitor it to see what happens. he might give us some new leads eventually"

3 - "let him write a book, and then we can confiscate the royalties for victim restitution"

2 - "what is the penalty for the CIA, FBI, NSA, and Homeland Security missing all the abundant evidence that these brothers were a clear and present danger?"

1 - "he's obviously a complete moron"
 
Wondering how long it will take our PJ e-Jihadis to outright declare it to be just a false flag thingy (he's an innocent bystander who was used) and blame those evil joos?
 
[QUOTEI oppose the death penalty for the same reason I oppose abortion. The taking of human life for reasons other than self-defense is not justified.[/QUOTE]

from a moral standpoint, you are completely correct. if anything, an unborn life has more value than that of an adult murderer.

that said, we live in a nation of secular law, not one bound by the moral traditions of this or that religion.

roe v. wade should never have happened. these sort of crossroads decisions need to happen with constitutional amendments, votes, or some other bona fide expression of the public will - not a 5-4 split decision of federal employees.
 
as seen on tv said:
death is not "cruel or unusual" as a punishment. it was happening before the founding fathers put pen to paper.
Click to expand...

So was drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, pressing with stones, the rack, etc. I don't see that as a definitive argument. By the standards of the first world, at least, the death penalty is certainly quite "unusual" today. Even in the US it's exceedingly rare this days -- only three dozen last year. And in Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and other wealthy nations, it no longer happens at all. At this point, it's almost exclusively the province of some barbaric nations that administer Islamic law, some communist countries, and a smattering of countries that were communist until recently.

For me, it comes down to what the purpose of it is. If it's simply to exact revenge, I consider that wrong and I must oppose it on moral grounds. In order to support capital punishment, I'd need to be convinced that, in a given case, it represents a significant additional deterrent, beyond the deterrent effect of life in prison without possibility of parole. I'm just not convinced of that for the kind of case we're talking about. I don't think there's ever going to be someone considering something like the Marathon Bombing who would have done it if the worst punishment was life in prison without possibility of parole, but would not do it if he knew the death penalty were a risk. I think that kind of crime is something someone only does if he isn't even considering consequences, because he thinks he'll get away with it or he's not thinking rationally (in which case ramping up the consequences does nothing).

Basically, I think that psychologically the cost/benefit analysis gets maxed out, on the cost-side, with a long prison sentence without parole. I think you can keep adding penalties to that side, but it has no further psychological impact on someone contemplating the crime. That's why we don't see any sign of lower serious crime rates in places that have the death penalty than places that don't, nor any sign that instituting or repealing the death penalty has an impact on rates. Based on that evidence, professional criminologists don't view it as an additional deterrent, and so it comes down to revenge, and I can't get behind that.

I agree with you, by the way, on the "destruction of evidence" angle. I think that's particularly a serious consideration when it comes to the kinds of crimes that tend to get considered for the death penalty -- serial killers and terrorists. Leave them stewing in jail for long enough, and you never know what kind of information they may be willing to come out with, about buried bodies or co-conspirators, just to feel important again, after years of dreary captivity. Kill them and you'll never know what information died with them. They're also good research subjects, if you want to better understand people who do what they do. Maybe some day some brilliant psychologist will talk to Tsarnaev and come to some conclusion others have missed about the "profile" of someone who would do such a thing, and maybe that will help us prevent future attacks. And that's not even to get into the possibility that later evidence will show innocence.

One other point -- I don't agree with the current rules where jurors are removed unless they say they could support the death penalty. We're entitled to a jury of our peers -- and our peers include people who oppose the death penalty. If you eliminate a large group of peers in order to support a particular penalty, you're not really fulfilling the Constitutional guarantee.
 
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