Explosion at the Boston Marathon.

I'm split between being satisfied at the verdict, yet I feel for the victims who have expressed a desire to sentence him to life, to void the appeals process.

They wanted him out of sight and out of mind, and now we're going to have to deal with that.
 
As much as I think the death penalty is, in principle, an important tool of any civilized justice system, without a prompt, effective, and decisive appeals process I don't really see the point.

Either we need to execute the right people rightly, or not at all.
 
Feel no sympathy for Tsernev at all.
All I know is either throught the Big Needle, or Life Imprisonment if the Death Penalty is overturned, he won't be planting any more bombs.
 
theprestige said:
As much as I think the death penalty is, in principle, an important tool of any civilized justice system, without a prompt, effective, and decisive appeals process I don't really see the point.

Either we need to execute the right people rightly, or not at all.
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This may surprise some of you, but I'm actually opposed to capital punishment. The reasons in the quoted post sum up my reasons pretty well. We just do such a piss-poor job of making sure innocent people stay off death row and an even worse job of delivering the speedy sting of a death sentence that even the potential of deterrence (which is a concept I don't buy in the first place) is a pipe-dream.

If it was reserved for such cases of grossly cruel violence where guilt is so overwhelmingly beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, such as the Boston Marathon bombing, and the criminal was taken out and hanged very soon after sentencing without the farce of the "humane" lethal injection, perhaps I could be convinced.

But until then, the system is too imperfect, and I hold to the Jeffersonian "10 guilty for 1 innocent" school of thought.

All that said, I can't bring myself to shed one tear for Tsarnaev.
 
theprestige said:
As much as I think the death penalty is, in principle, an important tool of any civilized justice system, without a prompt, effective, and decisive appeals process I don't really see the point.

Either we need to execute the right people rightly, or not at all.
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The death penalty is actually a sign that our society hasn't grown up. The civilized nations of the world get along just fine without it.
 
Kestrel said:
The death penalty is actually a sign that our society hasn't grown up. The civilized nations of the world get along just fine without it.
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Reasonable people can certainly find the death penalty morally troubling, but I think this pretense that it's the sign of an immature society is not particularly effective, enlightening or persuasive. It comes across as arrogant and condescending and discourages discussion. Not the way to influence others, in my humble opinion.
 
I find the death penalty morally troubling as well, although I am not against it in principle. I think it should reserved for those criminals who are so psychopathic, so morally irredeemable, and so dangerous that it simply is not worth the risk to society (specifically, the prison guards who must deal with him) to keep him alive. The problem with life in prison without parole being the maximum punishment is that there is simply no deterrent for a prisoner who already has received that sentence. I suppose one could offer rewards for good behavior, but the act of withholding rewards hardly seems like a worthwhile punishment for, in the extreme example, murdering a guard or another prisoner.
 
phiwum said:
Reasonable people can certainly find the death penalty morally troubling, but I think this pretense that it's the sign of an immature society is not particularly effective, enlightening or persuasive. It comes across as arrogant and condescending and discourages discussion. Not the way to influence others, in my humble opinion.
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I have real doubts that that those who still support the death penalty in the U.S. are susceptible to logical or moral arguments. It is more a matter of supporting the death penalty as a traditional value.
 
Kestrel said:
I have real doubts that that those who still support the death penalty in the U.S. are susceptible to logical or moral arguments. It is more a matter of supporting the death penalty as a traditional value.
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It is indeed a shame that so many people fall short of your standards of reason and moral certainty. I'm sure there's nothing more to say. Some are capable of clear thought, and others disagree with you.
 
Kestrel said:
I have real doubts that that those who still support the death penalty in the U.S. are susceptible to logical or moral arguments. It is more a matter of supporting the death penalty as a traditional value.
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I really have no issues with the death penalty if there is proof beyond doubt that the party was guilty and shows no remorse.

In this case, I would have liked to see him rot in jail, alone, it's a far worst punishment.
 
DGM said:
I really have no issues with the death penalty if there is proof beyond doubt that the party was guilty and shows no remorse.

In this case, I would have liked to see him rot in jail, alone, it's a far worst punishment.
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He would have ended up in the same cell block of Supermax as the Unibomber.
 
I don't believe in the death penalty because I don't believe the government -- any government -- should have the right to kill people.

Heck I don't even believe in life without parole. I think every prisoner, no matter how brutal and barbaric their crime, should have some expectation of getting out someday. Keep them in until they're old and gray but let them have a couple years of freedom before they die.

If you watch MSNBC Lockup you know that even corrections staff have concerns about this. In some of the maximum security prisons there are hundreds of prisoners serving life without parole or sentences so long they have no chance of ever getting out. Corrections officers say that makes their job a lot more difficult. They have no leverage over a lot of the inmates. Some of the COs (even prison officials) say that with the public demanding vocational programs be cut, educational programs be cut, in many cases there is nothing the staff can take away from inmates who misbehave.
 
I have a question. What happens if you get dementia or Alzheimer's while on death row? Is the execution carried out?
 
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dudalb said:
I have to wonder if the Needle is not preferable to a lifetime in the Maxiprison in Florence.
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Depends if they'll actually get to use the needle. The US states are running out of the drugs needed, and are having to resort to creative means of obtaining them, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced that they currently do not have the drugs required to carry out an execution.

Caper said:
I have a question. What happens if you get dementia or Alzheimer's while on death row? Is the execution carried out?
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Yup. IIRC the Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners, who lose their mental balance on death row, can still legally be executed.
 
KDLarsen said:
Yup. IIRC the Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners, who lose their mental balance on death row, can still legally be executed.
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I'm not fundamentally against the death penalty. Like a lot of others, I'm kind of against it, because there is just to much abuse in how it's applied, to many 99-1 shots being sent to death (by that I mean small chance they are innocent).

But there is just something fundamentally wrong with sending an old man who might have no idea where they are at to an execution.
 
Personally, I miss the good old-fashioned punishment of banishment. Unfortunately there's not enough inhospitable wilderness for it to be effective in the modern world. But perhaps we could seal off some appropriate area, say, New Jersey, and send all the lifers and death row inmates with no provisions or tools, (wasn't there a movie about this?) so that only the strongest and most resourceful/intelligent would survive. It would be televised of course as a reality show, with outsiders placing bets on their favorite inmates. The last survivor of course would be set free in an internationally televised event, with a grand ceremony on par with the Olympics...
 
ISF runs a capital punishment poll

According to that the majority say no to execution.
 
Less than one third of MA residents favor capital punishment. Two thirds of the population were unfit to serve on this jury because they did not have the court approved attitude on this matter.
 
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