Looks like the jury didn’t buy Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team’s attempt to blame everything on brother Speed Bump.
UPDATE: He was convicted on all 30 counts.
by Betty Cracker| 104 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Religious Nuts 2, Assholes, General Stupidity
Looks like the jury didn’t buy Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team’s attempt to blame everything on brother Speed Bump.
UPDATE: He was convicted on all 30 counts.
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[…] Verdict in the Boston Bombing Trial […]
Lavocat
There will be blood! Guilt was not so much the issue as was whether the Boston public’s appetite for blood could be sated. I’m guessing they like their meat rare and bloody.
JPL
They are only on count 15 and they have to read all 30 counts. So far he is guilty on all counts
Mike J
If we can try one terrorist in open court, why can’t we do it with all of them?
Oh yeah, the bedwetters in the US Senate.
trollhattan
You see, running over your brother so you can blame him for everything doesn’t always work.
Dude’s young, so LWOP is going to be a long, long time (my presumption being a death penalty won’t ever actually be carried out, so either sentence yields the same result). Rot, you fvcker.
Major Major Major Major
I’m with efgoldman. Sorry if it sounds a little libertarian, but the government’s monopoly on violence never applies to citizens, except in the case of war (enemy combatants) or other extenuating circumstances.
Some kid who’s already in prison for the rest of his life hardly qualifies.
Amir Khalid
Johar’s guilt was surely never in doubt. (I like to go with the simpler spelling of his name. Dzhokhar is an awkward transliteration from the original Arabic via Cyrillic.) Not that I want him executed; that wouldn’t bring back a single soul he and his brother killed, or heal anyone they maimed. Are the Feds still investigating Tamerlan’s American-born widow?
JPL
@efgoldman: As long as he is in a hole. After reading some of the testimony, I just have a problem with his enjoying the same sunshine as the victims. I’m not a death penalty proponent but if I were on that jury, I’m not sure that I’d vote for life.
marduk
@Lavocat: Boston public opinion is against the death penalty in this case.
http://news.yahoo.com/boston-marathon-bombing-poll-tsarnaev-death-penalty-203912025.html
The citizens of MA oppose the death penalty in general and there is no MA death penalty. It’s only because Tsarnaev faced federal charges that he is eligible.
So don’t be such an ass.
justawriter
From all the coverage I saw, mostly NPR, the only thing the prosecution presented seemed to be “dead baby” testimony designed to infuriate the jurors into a killing mood. Aside from coroners reports and victim testimony, all I heard about was the defendants tweets and music and nothing about how he actually participated in the acquisition and construction of the bomb, you know, the things that would actually indicate intent. I could be wrong, because I wasn’t following the case that closely.
shell
It just chills me when they show pictures of him in the crowd right before the explosions. So calmly mixing with the people he knows are going to be blown to bits in a few minutes (that 8 year old child, my god.)
Yeh, ‘collateral damage’ , you fucker.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I recently read somewhere that the investigation of the brother’s wife is ongoing. No idea if she’ll be charged or not.
I’m also hoping the kid doesn’t get the death penalty, which would serve no purpose. Lock him up and throw away the key instead.
Mike in NC
Solitary confinement for life.
Elizabelle
Guilty on all 30 counts.
That said, I hope that he’s spared the death penalty, and does get out of prison. A long, long, long time from now.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Why am I undefined now?
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: But he came by the awkward transliteration honestly, didn’t he? That is to say, it’s just how his name is spelled, on his official documents and everything. Correct me if I’m wrong of course.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: You still appear to be Amir.
Culture of Truth
We’ve been in the ‘avoiding the death penalty phase’ of the trial since day one
Lavocat
@marduk: Bite me. Federal charges often carry the death penalty regardless of whether the underlying jurisdiction has a death penalty or not. This comes up time and again in federal cases in the Northeast.
The kid deserves life in prison without parole for what he did.
Let him grow old in a cage.
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: Ah yes, she of the Aaron Swartz debacle.
Napoleon
Brother Speed Bump. :)
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Amir Khalid: Don’t know, but I hope the Feds are using the time honored methods of police work (instead of the Bush/Obama method of “blow random people up with drones”) and investigating the shit out of everyone that those people have ever had contact with.
There’s plenty more there to be found, guaranteed.
EthylEster
brother Speed Bump? WTF? Really unnecessary.
ThresherK (GPad)
@JPL: Someone that young can suffer many, many more years of LWOP than someone of my generation. Rot, indeed.
A relief to me this was completed before Monday 20th April, as I’ve long since decided to keep volunteerimg at the Marathon.
(As I mentioned previously, I was never closer than 20 miles to the actual scene on the day it happened, but have friends who were.)
Waldo
Not in favor of capital punishment, but if he does get death, I won’t be attending any candlelight vigils on his behalf.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
The Tsarnaevs are a pretty messed-up bunch, aren’t they? I’d fear for the mental health of anyone they drew into their orbit. If the Feds still haven’t found anything on Tamerlan’s widow by now, I hope they leave her alone.
marduk
@Lavocat: Bite me yourself. Pick some other city to slander, because the people of Boston are better than that.
Elizabelle
I just caught the “brother Speed Bump” part. LOL. Forgot that part of it.
I hope Tsarnaev is shown some mercy, years from now, that he and his brother withheld from their targets.
I am not for life without parole because this kid was traumatized by what’s going on in Chechnya. And because he is so young.
What he did was horrible. But I hope he gets a chance to apply for parole. Like 40 years from now. Lose all of his young and middle adulthood to atoning for his crime; let him out — if he’s no longer a threat to society — when he’s approaching Medicare age.
They would not have let me sit on the jury (aside from not being a Mass. resident!) cuz I couldn’t have gone for the death penalty.
Major Major Major Major
@CONGRATULATIONS!: If it’s the FBI, don’t hold your breath. They’re more traditionally known for frame-up jobs and entrapment.
Cervantes
It doesn’t matter.
The moving finger writes,
And having writ, moves on.
Nor all your piety and wit
Can call it back to cancel out one line,
Nor all your tears wash out one word of it.
Culture of Truth
Phrase of the Day: “Death Qualified Jury”
Elizabelle
And there the MSNBC person says the jurors had to “have an open mind” about applying the death penalty.
Which is another way of saying they had to have a closed mind about not even thinking of not killing the convict.
Your daily Orwell, earnestly delivered.
Cervantes
@efgoldman:
Same here, and therefore in this case as well, and I was with three youngsters (and an adult) at Ground Zero some minutes before the carnage.
@Lavocat:
And your basis for this “guess”?
Cacti
@Elizabelle:
I don’t believe parole is a possibility for murder under the federal sentencing guidelines.
His sentence would have to be commuted by a POTUS.
Elizabelle
@Culture of Truth: Yes. Because they’re more rational than the rest of us, I guess.
Elizabelle
I could do the death penalty for someone who bombed an airliner. So that’s food for thought …
Cermet
@shell: Glad he was convicted but where is our outrage for all the children we murdered for false reasons in Iraq? Yeah, when it hits home, we remember the victims who are children but never want to admit we kill vast numbers of children every time we launch massive bombing campaigns.
Amir Khalid
@Major Major Major Major:
I was undefined for a bit when I wanted to edit my comment and it timed out.
As to the transliteration, “Johar” is the common one in Malaysia for that name; while “Dzhokhar” is indeed the spelling used in his official documents, I understand he himself uses “Johar” informally.
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
Yup, knew that but federal executions are vanishingly rare so am presuming that unless we get AG Gonzales under a third Bush administration, that will remain the norm..
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I’ve been dismissed from a couple of jury pools because I oppose the death penalty too — in all cases. I don’t ever want this guy to get out of jail, though. Not ever.
I’m curious: Why would you be willing to apply the death penalty in an airliner bombing but don’t think the lesser penalty of LWOP is appropriate for someone who bombed the Boston Marathon?
Culture of Truth
alternative is 23 hours per day underground in SuperMax
Cervantes
@EthylEster:
I agree — but necessity is not the criterion in use, I’m guessing.
Cervantes
@Cermet:
Feel free to buzz me when you get an answer.
JPL
@marduk: Even though the jury is made up of residents, the poll is useless, unless they only included those who are open to the idea that death penalty is appropriate in some cases. The jury is much more tolerant although, I think they go with life in prison.
Iowa Old Lady
I oppose the death penalty for a bunch of reasons, but one of them is the same reason I oppose torture. They corrupt us as a people.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Wondering about that myself. I think it’s number of victims, and the fact that people in an airliner have nowhere to go. Defenseless. Which is not to say that little Martin the 8 year old could defend himself, either. Will never forget his little face.
I think Nancy Grace has helped to make me more anti-death penalty.
She’s just about got blood dripping out of her sarcastic mouth.
Cacti
@JPL:
Same here.
I think his youth will spare him a date with the execution chamber.
Had his brother been taken alive, I think he would have most certainly gotten a death sentence.
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady: I think the death penalty should be vanishingly rare, and for only the worst of the worst of the worst. Mass murderers on a public scale.
I could have thrown Timothy McVeigh in prison and thrown away the key.
Some jurors said the reason they sentenced Beltway Sniper John Muhammed to death (which was carried out) was fear he’d be a threat to his own jailers. I thought that sounded like justification ….
We hand out the death penalty way too much. And “Johar” was 19 when he did this.
Elizabelle
@Cacti:
That sounds like justice to me.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
Too much?
Wherever it is allowed in these United States, it is used unfairly.
lamh36
Rand Paul’s disdain for women comes through everytime he does an interview with a female reporter who is not some Faux News airhead. And I’m no fan of Savanah Guthrie in any case.
Rand Paul clashes with another woman news anchor for daring to ask him a real question
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/rand-paul-clashes-with-another-woman-news-anchor-for-daring-to-ask-him-a-real-question/#.VSVZbjgoHHA.twitter
ShadeTail
@Cermet: Two things:
#1: You’re posting to a website where people have expressed plenty of outrage over that.
#2: #1 notwithstanding, it’s pretty heartless of you to imply that outrage over the deaths of these children is illegitimate. And yes, that is what you are implying, no matter what excuses you use to claim otherwise.
marduk
@JPL: The poll is a response to the slanderous claim that the people of Boston are bloodthirsty and hoping for the death penalty. They are not, by a wide margin.
The jury on the other hand may well issue a death sentence, since anyone opposed to the death penalty was automatically excluded from serving in this case. I honestly have no idea what they will decide but unfortunately for those of us who oppose the death penalty the nature of the selection process puts a finger on the scale that makes a death sentence more likely.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
Are you sure that life without parole — possibly five or six decades, in Johar’s case — is a lesser penalty than death after a few years wait?
Peale
They also decided that he is guilty of Aaron Hernandez crimes as well, so that the Patroits can get their backup tight end back.
Elizabelle
@marduk: Could one ever argue that it’s unconstitutional to be sentenced by a “Death Qualified Jury”?
Because that’s exclusionary, and a jury of his/her peers might not have dealt out a death penalty.
marduk
@Elizabelle: Well I’m no lawyer but I’d like to see somebody successfully argue that case. I suspect that argument has been made in the past and rejected.
Gin & Tonic
@marduk: the nature of the selection process puts a finger on the scale that makes a death sentence more likely.
I don’t know if, statistically, it makes it more likely, but in the converse, if you allowed into the jury pool someone who is opposed to the death penalty under any circumstances, then the “penalty phase” of the trial would be pointless, wouldn’t it? The jury selection process would become the trial.
Waldo
@Elizabelle: His peers, presumably, would not be opposed to killing.
Elizabelle
Hearing MSNBC talking about “bomber’s row” at some western SuperMax, and how Timothy McVeigh begged to be executed.
So: do we allow assisted suicide for convicts sentenced to life without parole? After they’ve served a few years and had time to assess their (very limited) life options? Would that be mercy and justice?
Botsplainer
Fry his ass.
I have a thing about those who kill in the process of attempting to kill many. As a society, we overused capital punishment for single kills on circumstantial proof and fetishized the use of that penalty on incidental deaths which occurred contemporaneously with the commission of a felony. That was messed up, and ignores the reality of human relationships.
With serial killers (Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy), thrill killers (that murderous thing that Bush refused to commute in Texas, claimed to have found Sweet Baby Jesus), political spree killers (Rudolph, Hill) and mass bombers (the family Tsarnaev), there is no redemption. They set forth at the beginning with the intent to cause immense pain to multiple victims, and no longer deserve to share air molecules with everyone else.
Now on jury selection, I’d keep the “for cause” thing, would stop doing death qualification and would eliminate peremptory challenges. You get what you get, your panel reflects the vagaries of the community.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: to each his own spelling, of course, though usually in journalism, if one’s name is not Jeb, one’s nickname goes in the middle of the name, in scare quotes, like John Ellis “JEB” Bush, of course.
Steve
The death penalty is wrong, as is abortion.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Under the law it is generally held to be so. I guess for the individual, it comes down to personal preferences.
A relative of mine once did hard time — about 20 years. While he told me he longed for his freedom every day, he said life was still worth living behind bars. He read a lot, formed friendships, visited and corresponded with family, etc. (He was a large man, so I’m guessing that made his treatment by fellow inmates more tolerable.)
Cervantes
@lamh36:
When male reporters ask him such questions, how does he respond?
(Or don’t they ask?)
SiubhanDuinne
@marduk:
Hmmmmm….
Steeplejack
@Cervantes:
I’ve been looking (unsuccessfully) for a good edition of the Rubaiyat. If you know of one, shoot me the ISBN.
I have liked it since I was a kid and it was a bonding point with my grandmother, a farm woman who loved books and was very well read.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: @Betty Cracker: Distinction of the grade of threat: it’s between where you live/work/shop/whatever (which is localized), and the primary 21st century means of getting almost anywhere else. Bombs on planes (or planes as bombs) may kill fewer, but they threaten a whole lot more area/people/systems, and death in the air is a lot more certain than death on the ground so “OG OG We’re All Gonna Die” resonates. Plus there’s a uniquely US perspective on the problem for the last 14 years or so (can’t imagine why): aircraft as either crime scene or murder weapon triggers something primal nowadays. RELATED: FWIW I’ve done my share of criminal justice classes – and taken the field trips to the state pen as part of those: I’m no fan of executions either, but LWOP in a place like that isn’t something I’d wish on anyone. There are moments when I think that DP (actually carried out) may be less inhumane than LWOP (assuming of course that the sentence is merited and not due to shoddy defense, indifferent lab work or biased LOEs/prosecutors). And then I remember all the stuff in parentheses, and remind myself that US jurisprudence isn’t all we wish it could be and LWOP beats exoneration after execution.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: I will never forgive her for that. Prosecutors who abuse their power should be held accountable.
trollhattan
@Steve:
How about execution by a handful of Plan B pills?
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: weirdest story. My friend found a kindle in the forest outside Boston one day, on a hike. The inscription said it was owned by “Swartz.” It had a bunch of library loans on it about coping with depression and some ebooks about theory of mind, rationalism, and AI. And we were like “huh, weird, you should email his family.” And then he scrolled down and was like “…and the harry potter fanfic he was blogging about” and we were like ohhhhh crap, we found Aaron Swarz’s lost kindle.
Family confirmed. Weird.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: After the bombings the news media found the uncle. I remember the him ranting on TV about that side of the family and how they had problems or something like that. Remember liking him.
the Conster
@Steve:
You go right ahead and think that but the second you interfere with a woman’s right to have one, you’re wrong.
Mike J
@efgoldman: Swartz was guilty and turned down a deal for 6 months in Club Fed.
Steeplejack
@Major Major Major Major:
Since he has come out as Hispanic, we’re going with “¡Heb!” now.
Elizabelle
@boatboy_srq: Good comment.
Doug r
@CONGRATULATIONS!: it’s not random, at least with Obama
Betty Cracker
@boatboy_srq: If it were up to me, there would be no death penalty, and we’d apply the massive savings to improving prison conditions. I don’t think jail should be cushy, but it shouldn’t be a torturous hellhole either. But that’s a rant for another thread…
Major Major Major Major
@Elizabelle: yes. Everybody who is acceptably sane has the right to end their own life on their own terms, should it hurt nobody else in the process.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: Mercy, yes; justice, not sure. Rehabilitation doesn’t seem like a meaningful option, so it’s a matter of whether the punishment fits the crime or is merely satisfying a public sadistic streak.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: I’m not certain it’s a lesser penalty at all, but I believe the death penalty diminishes us as a society. And if you are going to support the death penalty, you should call it what it is: state sponsored homicide. The fact that the US has executed at the very least one (Cameron Todd Willingham) and most likely dozens of other innocent men, shames us all.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: And that impression was from a tour of Concord (NH) State Pen – which is one of the “nicer” ones. I can only imagine what some of the others are like.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: I dunno there, ef. I think Chechnya/trauma > affluenza defense > twinkie defense.
Which is not to say everyone from a war region or traumatized is a potential bomber/multiple murderer.
Mind you, I have not followed this trial at all. I bet it’s hard to avoid it, living in New England.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: he wasn’t guilty and should never have been charged under us IP law. His defender was right to reject the plea.
Elizabelle
Aha. Mr. Levenson weighs in on the applicability of death penalty for Tsarnaev.
New thread above.
boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: In this case it’s worthy of debate. But DP for horrific crimes too often enables DP for garden-variety homicides, and as we’ve seen (repeatedly, recently) there are police departments and prosecutors’ offices less interested in justice than in keeping Those People in their place – and trusting such with that kind of power is dangerous. It’s a lot more difficult to release an innocent executed inmate than an innocent live one, assuming that release can be obtained (in Texas in at least one case it could not and a demonstrably innocent inmate was executed anyway).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer:
That’s an interesting thought. While I would never argue that cause should be eliminated, I had not considered your position on peremptories. Probably because I’ve persuaded myself that I’ve used them to my clients’ (including “the state”) advantage through my career. You make a good point about getting what you get without those challenges.
Major Major Major Major
@Major Major Major Major: not that Swartz wasn’t ill. But downloading Jstor is not illegal. Nor is distributing previously downloaded articles. Publishing and wire law haven’t caught up to the Internet still but all the charges were bogus.
marduk
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, support for the death penalty in Boston is at the Crazification Factor.
Paul in KY
I hope he gets the death penalty. He certainly deserves it.
If LWOP is so much worse, how come all of them up for the death penalty always have their lawyers argue so hard for an LWOP sentence?
trollhattan
@marduk:
What percentage of Boston lives in Southie?
Major Major Major Major
@Paul in KY: so our justice system isn’t about rehabilitation and never has been? Why let anybody out ever?
Cervantes
@efgoldman:
The problem pre-dates our Five Savonarolas. Several recent Courts have been protective of the death penalty. Ruling “death-qualification” unconstitutional would give individual jurors a lot of power over life and death — not something these Courts have wanted to see, apparently
In Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968), the Supreme Court was less hostile to our view, ruling that potential jurors could not be disqualified if they only stated a general (or conscientious or religious) objection to the death penalty. If, however, these potential jurors said they were categorically opposed to the death penalty, or if they said the possibility of a death sentence might influence their decision re guilt, then they could be excluded.
In 1985, the standard, especially that last part of it, was changed in Wainwright v. Witt. Judges were given more discretion to exclude people if they thought their views could “prevent or substantially impair” their ability to arrive at a fair sentence.
And just one year later, in Lockhart v. McCree (1986), the Court was given empirical (statistical) evidence re the effect of “death-qualifying” juries. Naturally, it was decided that, no matter what the data showed in general, a “death-qualified” jury could not be invalidated on that basis alone, unless the defendant could show that his or her own jury was biased.
There are other relevant rulings but the above account gives a sense of the jurisprudence and in any event will have to suffice for now.
marduk
@trollhattan: Not sure what the percentage is but Irish Catholics in the Boston area have always strongly opposed the death penalty and Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston released a statement reiterating Catholic opposition to the death penalty in the marathon bombing case, so I’d be surprised if support was disproportionately high in Southie.
Botsplainer
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I always hated jury trials. My longest was five weeks (complex federal criminal litigation involving economic adulteration of food products in furtherance of a massive fraud), and I’ve had some two week wrongful death trials in the mix as well. I’m good at them, but hate hearing my own mouth run that long.
Much simpler to do family law bench trials.
Anyway, I’ve always felt like the peremptory system created “too blank” a slate – you get people too vanilla to hold a strong opinion about anything, which makes them too malleable to presentation style. Further, you tend to wind up with an anodyne panel that reflects the people in job categories that don’t involve a lot of decisionmaking – industrial line workers, nurses, teachers, students. I’m all for the jury truly being of peers – and yes, that is going to include people who don’t trust police, it will include people who have had family members in similar circumstances, and will include people who will never vote to convict or to grant a death penalty. It would put stronger personalities on a jury that truly reflect peers, the way the community looks.
It would actually be a positive in a populist sense, so it will never happen.
Steeplejack
@Botsplainer:
I agree with this. In my long-ago newspaper days I covered a bunch of trials, and I always cringed at the jury selection process and the panels it all too often created. I always thought, Why wouldn’t I want a potentially more skeptical but smarter, more analytical juror on my case? But I’m sure my attorney would say, “Give me the bland jury and I’ll wrap ’em around my finger with my mad legal skillz.”
Steve
Constant- the second a woman becomes pregnant her rights chsngr
Heliopause
Damn. I had “not guilty” in the office pool. All the other squares were taken.
Cervantes
@Steeplejack:
That was a different Cervantes, but if you want an answer from me, just ask again.
Steeplejack
@Cervantes:
Or you could just weigh in with your opinion. Jee-sus.
Cervantes
@Steeplejack:
Why would I, if you meant to ask someone else?
Anyhow, you seem cross.
I’m off for the night.
Ruckus
@Botsplainer:
I want to be better than those people who kill. I don’t want to kill and I don’t want it done in my name. You aren’t defending yourself or your family by the death penalty, it is strictly revenge. It isn’t necessary for a society to seek revenge to accomplish the removing of that person from society. We are in the 21st century, surly we can do better than an 8th century society.
Paul in KY
@Major Major Major Major: Different times for different crimes. If you blow up a bunch of people, maliciously, there is no rehabilitation on this planet (IMO).
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: IMO, death is the JUST punishment for his crimes. Getting 3 hots & a cot for the next 50 years is not the appropriate punishment for what he did.