Should we try Tsarnaev in the USA?

Courier said:
Do we really want to strip American citizens detained on American soil, of cherished 5th & 6th Amendment rights?
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In these cases I tend to look at what this citizen thought about the rights of those he/she attacked.

The blatant disregard for others does not instill much sympathy, I'm afraid.
 
DGM said:
In these cases I tend to look at what this citizen thought about the rights of those he/she attacked....
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You mean what he allegedly thought about those he allegedly attacked, based on you speculation.

Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, still has meaning in this country.
 
Courier said:
You mean what he allegedly thought about those he allegedly attacked, based on you speculation.

Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, still has meaning in this country.
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Absolutely. Being tried as an enemy combatant also does not automatically mean you're guilty in this country.
 
DGM said:
Absolutely. Being tried as an enemy combatant also does not automatically mean you're guilty in this country.
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Being tried as an Enemy Combatant means he loses many 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights. This is not something we should do to an American citizen, let alone a legal Permanent Resident.
 
Courier said:
Being tried as an Enemy Combatant means he loses many 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights. This is not something we should do to an American citizen, let alone a legal Permanent Resident.
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I don't think they take that classification lightly (as seen from the fact he was not charged that way). This is for the times when the person can be shown to not hold these rights for others, why should he/she receive them in return? It still provides more rights than in the majority of the world.
 
DGM said:
I don't think they take that classification lightly (as seen from the fact he was not charged that way). This is for the times when the person can be shown to not hold these rights for others, why should he/she receive them in return? It still provides more rights than in the majority of the world.
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Again, you mean he is "alleged" to not have respected the rights of others.

I pray you are never accidentally confused with a terrorist.
 
DGM said:
In these cases I tend to look at what this citizen thought about the rights of those he/she attacked.

The blatant disregard for others does not instill much sympathy, I'm afraid.
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This would apply to most murders, rapes, burglaries etc.
 
The problem with stripping rights away from American citizens because they MIGHT be terrorists, is that they MIGHT be innocent of all charges!!!!!
 
DGM said:
In these cases I tend to look at what this citizen thought about the rights of those he/she attacked.

The blatant disregard for others does not instill much sympathy, I'm afraid.
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Luckily the rights of the accused pertain to people accused of crimes, regardless of whether or not you find them sympathetic.

I think you confuse matters by trying to cast a crime as a rights violation. In this context, it's better to think of rights as limitations on the authority of the government. The violation of the "rights" of the victim of a crime is already illegal.
 
Stripping away Constitutional rights from terrorist suspects is all find & good, until it happens to someone you know and love.

Or to you.
 
DGM said:
I don't think they take that classification lightly (as seen from the fact he was not charged that way). This is for the times when the person can be shown to not hold these rights for others, why should he/she receive them in return? It still provides more rights than in the majority of the world.
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I'm glad they're not taking the classification lightly, but you seem to be.

Can be shown -- This is what a trial is for. If you get these things out of order, rights are violated.

Not hold these rights for others -- Are you saying that the bombers didn't safeguard their victims' 4th, 5th and 6th amendment rights, and thus should be denied them?
 
Jodie said:
I think rights are earned and shouldn't be automatically bestowed ...
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I can confidently say that if you took that pov over to a US 'gun rights' thread you'd be ripped to shreds. Rights are rights. Right? Or are they only "rights" when they right?
 
angrysoba said:
An interesting article by Glenn Greenwald here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/20/boston-marathon-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-mirnada-rights

Anyway, doesn't the point that this case could be an open-and-shut case mean that there is no reason whatsoever to eschew good legal practice?

Jodie, you seem to be arguing that given the obvious guilt that increases the reasons to muddy the legal process.
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Yeah, I would HATE to be Tsarnev's Defense Attorney. He really does not have much to work with as far his defendent being innocent of the crime is concerned.
I suspect we are going to hear some kind of insanity/deminished capacty defense ,with possibly trying to shift most of the blame on to the older brother .
Or it might not come to trial at all, I can really see Tsarnev agreeing to spill everything he knows in return for not getting the death penalty.
 
Courier said:
The problem with stripping rights away from American citizens because they MIGHT be terrorists, is that they MIGHT be innocent of all charges!!!!!
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I think it has more with the horrible precedent it would set, not to mention the whole, 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments thing.....
 
GlennB said:
Rights are rights. Right? Or are they only "rights" when they right?
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Correct!

Rights mean whatever a majority on an appellate court, on up to SCOTUS, says they mean. They can mean one thing now and a few years from now they may mean something else entirely.

Sometimes it even turns out the person who wrote the law didn't get it right. They thought they meant 'A, B and C' only later a court looks at it and decides they actually meant 'X, Y and Z!'
 
SezMe said:
It makes sense if a life sentence is not really a life sentence. If they have to be served sequentially, it does keep the bad guys in the hole much longer.
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I do actually understand that. I know that sometimes "life" sentences allow for parole and that consecutive "life" sentences increase the time until the convict is eligible for parole. Nonetheless, it seems a bit nonsensical to me to call a sentence a "life" sentence when it really isn't. The nonsensical (if taken at face value) consecutive life sentences stems from the nonsensical (or maybe it's just lazy) practice of calling a sentence that is really something like 10 years to life a "life" sentence.
 
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