No, Death Isn't 'Too Good' for Tsarnaev

Townhall.com ^ | 2/15/13 | Jeff Jacoby

[Impala64ssa]

Of all the reasons to oppose the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev if he is found guilty of the Boston Marathon terror bombings, none is less convincing than the claim that executing the murderer of Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu, Martin Richard, and Sean Collier would amount to rewarding him.

Seek Tsarnaev's death and you give him just what he craves, runs this argument, which has been made by law professor Alan Dershowitz, criminologist James Alan Fox, and death-penalty critics in the media. Executing Tsarnaev will succeed only in making him a martyr and a hero, they say; it will drive more attention to his cause. "His face would appear on recruiting posters for suicide bombers," Dershowitz warned last year in an essay for The Guardian. "The countdown toward his execution might well incite other acts of terrorism."

Closely related is the objection that executing Tsarnaev hands a propaganda victory to nihilists who think the key to paradise is to maim and murder in the glare of publicity. If federal prosecutors actively pursue a sentence of death, they'll be keeping that publicity alive, generating waves of fresh media coverage for the jihadist's evil motivations, and boosting his stature among his supporters. But a conviction followed by decades in prison, say death-penalty opponents, would replace that spotlight with insignificance. Within a few years, he would vanish from public consciousness. Deny him the hype and notoriety of death row, and Tsarnaev will molder in obscurity, a role model for no one.

But there are obvious weaknesses with this argument.

Life imprisonment offers no assurance that interest in a depraved killer will dry up, as the grotesque and ongoing pop culture surrounding Charles Manson has repeatedly shown.

[bgill]

The cops should have removed him from this world when he was in the boat. As it is, he got his face on the cover of the Rolling Stone and now has a bevy of teeny boppers in luuuuuv with him. Be done with him so he never has a chance of getting out and causing harm again. I wouldn’t put it past hussein to pardon him one day or the next evil marxist POTUS setting him up as head of Homeland Security. There’s enough evil in the world that we don’t need to keep it around.

[bgill]

You might want to review those pictures of the victims and sit down with the families of those who died. Then think about him getting out one day. Yes, it could happen. It happened in the 70s when the death penalty was taken down. We had to let many of those monsters out because they’d served enough years for their new sentences for life. First thing many did was go out and kill again.

[bgill]

Frankly, 3 years is enough time to go through appeals. Dragging it out after that is just a waste of air.

[Nip]

The solution to executing an Islamic Terrorist without rewarding him is very old, very simple, and very effective in discouraging current and future Islamic terrorists.

Come with me in my way-back-machine to the turn of the 20th Century in a place called the Philippines.

The US was fighting Islamic Terrorists in the Southern Philippines with little to no effect until one US Army Captain’s actions robbed the terrorists of their after life rewards; in fact the terrorists he killed that day were forever barred from Paradise, and its rewards, by Islamic Law!

The terrorists were supposedly shot with bullets dipped in pig fat - a la the 1850 munity in India. Plus, they were seen being buried in pig entrails. These events were reported back to their tribe by the sole survivor of that engagement.

AS a result Islamic Terrorism died out in the Southern Philippines for two generations. Islamic grandmothers used the Captain’s name as a boggy man when teaching their children and grandchildren.

His name - John, “Black Jack”, Pershing.
The place - Mindanao and Jolo provinces
The time - August 1899 thru March 1901

Questions?

[cynwoody]

Like Charles Mansion, who has stupid ignorant bimbos wanting nothing more than to have his love child.

In the aftermath of the bombing, one chick recalled her attraction to Joker in Mother Jones:

She says her romantic relationship with Tsarnaev lasted for about two weeks. "I met him standing outside a building and honestly, his face was enough to capture my heart," she explained, noting that lots of women fawned over him. "I walked right up to him and I was like, 'Oh my God, you are adorable. Can we hang out?' I'm very forward."

[Mercat]

If they call me to go pull the plug, throw the switch etc, I will totally take your advice.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

I would suggest we have the federal prison at Devens build a six foot by six foot by six foot blast resistant cube as his solitary confinement cell. The prison should then place an unrefrigerated ham atop each of four pressure cookers loaded with explosives and nails similar to the bombs he and his brother made and used. Wire the bombs to go off together if any of them is tampered with or even moved. Give him a pail as a toilet and do not change the hams until they stop smelling. My guess is that Tsarnaev will not last for trial and will die an ignominious death at his own already blood-stained Mohammedan hands.

[The Great RJ]

Tsarnaev deserves nothing less than the death penalty especially since you see him on a surveillance video nonchalantly planting his bomb next to a kid and walking away. The problem is that it will be years if not decades before justice is served and he is executed. Given the overwhelming video and other evidence of his guilt he should have gone to trial long ago, had a hand full of appeals and should be waiting for execution. It would be fitting if he were to be publicly hanged on Boston Common and his body unceremoniously dumped into Boston Harbor.