He doesn’t matter anymore, but *we *still do. Let’s think about us for a moment. If we kill him, intentionally, what does that make us?
Unusual? No, with the US having 25% of the world’s prisoners, it seems pretty status quo. As for cruel? Well, it IS a punishment.
That said, let’s look at SCOTUS’ decision for Furman v. Georgia
Justice Brennan wrote: “There are, then, four principles by which we may determine whether a particular punishment is ‘cruel and unusual’.”
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the essential predicate for the application of the others, is that a punishment must not, by its severity, be degrading to human dignity.
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It can’t be inflicted in a “wholly arbitrary fasion”.
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It can’t be “clearly and totally rejected throughout society”.
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And that it is “patently unnecessary”.
He then hammers it home while knocking out the death penalty too.
[QUOTE=Justice Brennan]
In sum, the punishment of death is inconsistent with all four principles: death is an unusually severe and degrading punishment; there is a strong probability that it is inflicted arbitrarily; its rejection by contemporary society is virtually total; and there is no reason to believe that it serves any penal purpose more effectively than the less severe punishment of imprisonment. The function of these principles is to enable a court to determine whether a punishment comports with human dignity. Death, quite simply, does not.
When this country was founded, memories of the Stuart horrors were fresh and severe corporal punishments were common. Death was not then a unique punishment. The practice of punishing criminals by death, moreover, was widespread and by and large acceptable to society. Indeed, without developed prison systems, there was frequently no workable alternative. Since that time, successive restrictions, imposed against the background of a continuing moral controversy, have drastically curtailed the use of this punishment. Today death is a uniquely and unusually severe punishment. When examined by the principles applicable under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, death stands condemned as fatally offensive to human dignity. The punishment of death is therefore “cruel and unusual,” and the States may no longer inflict it as a punishment for crimes. Rather than kill an arbitrary handful of criminals each year, the States will confine them in prison.
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. This is my position as well. Our justice system is just not good enough to ensure only 100% of those given the death penalty “should” get it. Once you start making exceptions, you are on a slippery slope - to where we are today with the death penalty (where people who were executed or on death row are exonerated).
Punishment or vengeance for Tsarnaev has nothing to do with it. Being consistent in the application of our laws is the issue.
How about providing someone sentenced to solitary and LWP a cyanide capsule and saying “Use it if you want to”?
I’m using my own definition of cruel and unusual. I would be fine with Nars’ solution below. I think this weak-minded kid is now under the influence of his attorneys who think that somehow life in prison is the preferable solution. The kid should have enough sense to demand the death penalty instead of going mad locked in a cell for the next 50 years.
What Tsarnaev did leaves me incapable of caring if he keeps breathing or not, but that said, I don’t think our response to his actions should be to become murderers ourselves.
Murder is, by definition, unlawful.
The death penalty is lawful.
Application of the death penalty, therefore, cannot possibly be murder.
Common American consensus has as little regard for life as it does for common sense. Let’s look at which countries clocked up the most death penalties last year;
China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the US.
On a humanitarian level, it’s no better than the North Koreans, with as feeble an understanding of rehabilitation and retribution. Stop fetishizing over death and dominance and try and get a deeper understanding of why people keep wanting to attack the states instead of demanding the death penalty…zzzzzzz:smack:
Does it matter what term bureaucrats stick on their humanitarian crimes so people on forums can say ahhh but its not murder! Its LAWFUL muder? Wake up man.
“Lawful murder” is an oxymoron.
1, 2.
You keep believing that, pumpkin, if it helps you sleep at night.
[QUOTE=The Dictionary]
MURDER. the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.
[/QUOTE]
The discussion here is about morality, not legality. The concepts are not congruent.
Life would give him a chance to understand what he did, and have to live with that knowledge. Killing him won’t teach him anything, it will only make him, in his mind, the martyr to Islam he wants to be, and might even encourage others to follow. Not killing him shows the world that isn’t who we are.
Eh, like always, I am fine with the philosophical concept of the death penalty.
In matters of equity and justice it’s often the fairest penalty. Further, for people who are just truly incompatible with human society, I think that death is actually a lot more humane than life imprisonment. Look at the mental damage we know happens to mammals who are not allowed to live their lives as nature intended, but are instead locked up in zoos and circuses. Their life expectancy is sometimes (depends on the animal) a lot longer in captivity, but it’s a life of extremely low quality. I think that there’s a decent argument that essentially a 50-60 year prison term is far more cruel than an execution.
As a matter of practicality I oppose the death penalty as it exists now because of the poor implementation of it, its cost, and that we do not have a good mechanism for ascertaining with near certainty when someone is guilty of a crime (we do have this for some cases, but not all.)
I’ve never understood how the victims matter in this debate. Killing Dzhokhar doesn’t give anyone their legs back or the three families their loved ones back, and at the end of the day him and his brother both seemed to want to die in a blaze of glory. Now that the adrenaline of that day is passed I doubt he necessarily really wants to die, but I also doubt he wants to spend 60 years (or more) in a Supermax (which is what will 100% happen), to me if you just want to maximize Dzhokhar’s pain as a victim, being caged in solitary for the better part of the 21st century seems far worse a fate than a few minutes of fear and suffering before oblivion.
Legality is merely the democratic application of morality.
If people want to declare that they’re fighting in the name of a coward who murdered innocent people in cold blood and ran over his own brother trying to flee the law, then I say let them. Let them tell the entire world that that’s what they believe in - it’ll only make it easier for us and everyone else to know who’s in the wrong.
Who are you willing to let them kill in order to make that statement?
I don’t care if he understands what he did or if he learns anything. The death penalty should be a type of assisted suicide in this case.
[QUOTE=ITR champion]
I oppose the death penalty in all cases. I would think, though, that even supporters of it would oppose using it on Islamic terrorists, since those people want to be killed for their crimes.
[/QUOTE]
Speaking as a supporter of the death penalty in general, I am fine with using it on Islamic terrorists even if they want to be killed. The reasons I support the DP have little or nothing to do with what the terrorist wants, and his wishes are not to be consulted.
At least we know for certain that the Innocence Project isn’t going to claim that DNA would have cleared him.
Regards,
Shodan
Either way, I’ll not lose any sleep over what happens to this guy.