Last updated on May 17th, 2015 at 04:08 am
A jury in Boston has sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death.
WBUR tweeted the verdict:
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Did #Tsarnaev intentionally kill victims? Jury says yes to counts 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, and 15
— WBUR Live (@wburLive) May 15, 2015
Did #Tsarnaev intentionally inflict serious damage resulting in death? Jury says yes for counts 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 15, and 15.
— WBUR Live (@wburLive) May 15, 2015
3: #Tsarnaev committed crime in heinous, depraved, cruel manner. Jury says yes to counts 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 15.
— WBUR Live (@wburLive) May 15, 2015
Bill and Denise Richards, who were parents of two of the young bombing victims, had urged the prosecution to take the death penalty off the table, “But now that the tireless and committed prosecution team has ensured that justice will be served, we urge the Department of Justice to bring the case to a close. We are in favor of and would support the Department of Justice in taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all of his rights to appeal.”
Despite the conventional wisdom that Tsarnaev might avoid the death penalty, the reality was that it would have been unlikely that a terrorist who committed such a heinous act would be allowed to live. However, there is an argument beyond an eye for an eye that the harsher punishment could have been forcing to live out his life in a supermax prison.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s appeals will take years, but the punishment that the jury ordered will eventually be carried out. However, no punishment can ever bring back those who lost their lives on that terrible day in 2013.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
