On Friday, a Federal Jury sentenced
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death after 14 hours of deliberations. A relatively speedy decision for a complex case such as this. Still, with an overwhelming amount of evidence and little emotion on the part of the defendant, the jury wasn't buying the idea that Mr. Tsarnaev, who was 19 at the time of the Boston Marathon bombings, was under the malicious influence of his older brother Jahar Tsarnaev whom he ran over with a stolen vehicle after Jahar had been shot by the police.
And so, justice is served.
If you feel comfortable with the idea that a young man is going to be put to death after a clown-show of a trial.
One of the disqualifying factors of being a jury member in case was discomfort at the idea of sentencing someone to death. So, in other words, every single member of the jury had to be completely at peace with the idea of sentencing another human being to death.
To get an idea of how disproportionate and unrepresentative of the state of Massachusetts that is, this poll shows only 15% of Massachusetts residents support the death penalty. To top that off, Massachusetts hasn't had a death penalty since 1984 but because this was a federal trial, the death sentence was on the table. From the start Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was doomed.
We are quick to assume that every "terrorist" deserves death and without a doubt the crime Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty of was despicable in the worst sense of the word. But to put someone so young to death leaves me with no sense of justice at all.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was 19 at the time of the crime, and even now at 21 his brain is still not fully developed. So is it really that hard to believe that someone so young could have been heavily influenced by his older, and by all accounts, far more assertive brother?
To top off the moral argument on the death sentence, the Defense was not granted a change of venue in order to preserve a sense of fairness. Lastly, and to me most shockingly, the jurors were never instructed that if a single juror voted in favor of life, than the default sentence was life in prison. Of the 12 jurors, 3 believed Dzhokhar was acting under the influence of his older brother Jahar.
I don't care if you're a proponent of or against the death penalty, anyone can read between the lines to see that Dzhokhar never had a chance.