Posted on 01/31/2014 4:11:28 PM PST by bkopto
Given the powerful grief and anger over the Boston Marathon bombing, Boston would seem to be a particularly hostile place for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to stand trial. But it might just be his best hope of escaping a death sentence.
Opposition to the death penalty runs deep in liberal Massachusetts. In a Boston Globe survey in September, 57 percent of Massachusetts residents polled favored life in prison for Tsarnaev, while 33 percent favored execution.
As Tsarnaev's lawyers weigh whether to attempt to move his trial out of town, away from those most deeply traumatized by the bombing, some legal experts say staying put might be a better strategy, even though emotions in the city are raw.
"I'd rather take my shot with the citizens of Massachusetts," said Christopher Dearborn, a professor at Boston's Suffolk Law School. "We're at the highest irony here: We're going to have a death penalty trial in a state where a majority of our citizens don't support the death penalty."
Federal prosecutors announced Thursday that they will seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev, 20, when he goes on trial in the bombing last April that killed three people and injured more than 260 at the crowded finish line of the race. No trial date has been set.
Massachusetts abolished its death penalty in 1984, and repeated attempts to reinstate it have failed in the Legislature. But Tsarnaev is being prosecuted under federal law.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
In federal court, the jury first decides guilt or innocence and then, if the verdict is guilty, the same jury, in a separate proceeding starting immediately after the first verdict, decides whether the sentence is death or life without parole.
You don’t have to go down with them. Don’t let yourself think that.
I think anyone has seen what was done and there’ll likely be a mob outside howling for this man to get the chair/needle. Like Timothy McVeigh, there will be an expectation of the death penalty.
Just because the press can say that, doesn’t mean the rest of the country believes it.
I believe it’s a cut/dried case; he’ll be convicted and then sentenced to death and I believe that the jury will not take long to announce the conviction and death sentence.
Rolling Stone got blasted for having that scum on their cover and trying to hype him as a icon like Che Gueavera. He’s never going to be some pop icon and he did attack a bunch of liberals in the liberal bastion Boston.
I always get a chuckle out of Liberals.
Keep those murdering terrorists alive and kill those unborn children at will.
Capital punishment hurts the accused and is inhumane buts it’s OK to puncture the brain of a baby.
Not that stupid.
Women, and some men, become enthralled with people on trial and this can lead to crushes.
Never under estimate the power of stupid liberals.
You’d be surprised how radical are the followers of the Kennedys in MA.
It’s because MA people are the epitome of “sexual freedom”.
No, but a lot of people in Cambridge probably do. All it matters is where the jury comes from, and it’s not national.
True, quite true; I simply don’t see the scum getting away with it alive. If he gets prison, he’ll end up dead at the hands of a prisoner who wants to make a name for himself. Or the rest will gang up on him and end up squashing him.
I’ll remember that the next time someone tells me to ‘judge lest ye be judged.” This worm I’ll gladly judge.
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