YouSpeak: Deciding the Fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

If found guilty, should he be sentenced to life in prison or death?

March 31, 2015
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When the trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev began early in March after weeks of jury selection, it was expected to take three to four months. But Tsarnaev’s admission that he put the bombs near the Marathon finish line on April 15, 2013, has resulted in a speedier trial. Prosecutors rested their case on Monday after calling 92 witnesses over 15 days. The defense could wrap up its case as early as today, at which point it will go to the jury.

The two bombs killed 3 people, including BU student Lu Lingzi (GRS’13), and injured more than 260.

Tsarnaev faces 30 federal charges for conspiring and carrying out the bombings with his older brother, Tamerlan, who died in a shootout with police four days later. The charges include multiple counts of use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death, aiding, and abetting; conspiracy to bomb a place of public use resulting in death; and carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury, aiding and abetting. Of the 30 charges, 17 carry the death penalty.

If the Tsarnaev jury finds him guilty, jury members will then be tasked with deciding whether he should be sentenced to life in prison or to death.

So this week’s “YouSpeak” asks: “If Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is found guilty, should he receive the death penalty?”

“YouSpeak” typically appears on Mondays. If you have a suggestion for a topic, leave it in the Comment section below.

Bill Politis can be reached at bpolitis@bu.edu.

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  • Bill Politis

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    Bill Politis is a documentary filmmaker based in Boston. Profile

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Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 39 comments on YouSpeak: Deciding the Fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

  1. I pose a question why should the U.S. tax payer be forced to provide shelter, food, and medical care for potentially 60+ years to an individual who purposefully attacked it’s citizens?

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    1. Life in prison is usually cheaper for tax payers when you factor in years of appeals. Some feel that life in prison is far worse than death anyway, and given that he wants to be a martyr, life in prison is a harsher sentence for him.

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        1. he would be in solitary confinement but the us is a joke what happended to innocent until proven guilty trials over and they didn’t prove he was guilty by no stretch of the imagination

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  2. I am against the death penalty because it is uncivilized but a life of solitary confinement in a windowless bathroom is just a death penalty by slow torture. Let the boy choose his own fate. This trial just seems to be all about vengeance!

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    1. What do you mean choose his own faith? Pretty sure he would choose to be set free? What’s the point of Law and Order if the convicted get to decide what happens?

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    2. Why would we let a terrorist who ruined (and took away) so many lives decide his fate? If you commit such a horrible, cowardly crime, you have to pay the consequences. He doesn’t deserve the right to choose his own punishment.

      On a different note, I don’t think Tsarnaev should be killed. He admitted in the letter he wrote inside the boat that dying would mean he was a martyr for his “cause.” I don’t think he deserves to die with that satisfaction.

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    3. Really?! The trial is about “vengeance”? Then every charge would be vengeance for something: stealing something, raping a child, bilking taxpayers out of millions of dollars…… Vengeance here would probably be having this defendant suffer the same horrific death that he and his brother — without a doubt –inflicted on perfectly innocent people, including a BU student who was killed.

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  3. I used to be of the opinion that the death penalty was never justified. That was before the Marathon bombing took place. After the event, and after realizing that, as someone near the finish line taking part in the festivity that is Patriot’s Day in Boston, I could just have easily have been the target of the bombs, I changed my opinion. When you suddenly realize that if you were near the finish line, it was YOU that they intended to kill and maime as part of their collateral damage, it alters your perspective. There are arguments for and against the death penalty which both have their merits, and I still believe that in certain cases capital punishment is not appropriate, but I think that the need for closure and for a sense of retribution is overriding. This individual and his brother had a clear intent, which was to cause as much destruction of life as possible through their action. I believe that justifies his death at the hands of the state. Some people bend and twist civilization to either include or exclude the death penalty. I don’t think that the death penalty, in this particular case, will abridge anyone’s sense of civility. The punishment must fit the crime, and those affected are not going to have the sense that justice has been done by locking him away for decades. If Dzhokhar is found guilty, closure and justice for the victims, their families, and the community at large demands his execution.

    Put yourself in my place, saved by just over a hundred feet of distance from apparently premeditated murder. Or in the place of a runner whose body was mutilated, or his family. Put yourself in the place of the bystanders who were killed, or the family of the MIT officers who was shot and killed. I think that we can live with Dzhokhar’s death on our conscience (again, if he is found guilty).

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  4. No death penalty for anyone, for any reason. If it’s wrong for someone to do something bad, it’s wrong for others to do it too.

    “Thou shalt not kill.”

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    1. The bible is the absolute LAST thing we should be consulting. This has nothing to do with religion. This has to do with Federal criminal accusations.

      And if you want to quote the bible, why don’t you look also at the vengeful God of the Old Testament. No turning of the other cheek there.

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      1. Quoting one biblical passage does not require anyone to accept all the rest. As a nonviolent pacifist, I reject the problematic sections Cigar & Student mention here.

        One of religion’s main purposes is to teach ethics, & the injunction against killing is universal across all faiths. I quoted the Bible passage simply because it’s the best-known statement on the ethical injunction. Even someone like me, who is not conventionally religious, can appreciate this dimension of religion. And so should you, unless you believe Federal laws have nothing to do with ethics.

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        1. What a horrendous place the world would be if our penal code was derived from the ethics of any particular religion or combination thereof. It would be terrible if people were moral or ethical simply because a book tells them to be, or worse because they fear divine wrath if they don’t adhere to a religion’s moral code. Is that the only reason someone should be moral? I mean, if it is, then without it people could just go about murdering and raping as they pleased.

          Ethics don’t come from religion, they come from evolution and the concept that at one time, when humans lived in small bands and nomadic groups, hostility towards others could very well have entailed the destruction of similar genes and even destruction of related kin. Morals and ethics of not hurting others in particular capacities stem from this.

          Federal laws have everything to do with legal ethics and the philosophy of punishment. But that some of those ethics INCIDENTALLY coincide with the ethics of judeo-christian monotheism is not proof that they are one in the same. Human ethics, developed from an evolutionary standpoint, are the source of what you might call the “natural good” of kindness and repression of hostility.

          As a matter of fact, it’s once religion enters into the picture of human history that you really find the degradation of this natural good…

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          1. You’ve gone well off the topic, Cigar. Your diatribe against religion belongs somewhere else other than here.

            Religion is only one source of ethics, perhaps not even the best. Most of your strictures apply more to the institutional hierarchies of world religions, not individual beliefs.

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  5. It still baffles me, after many years in this country, how its citizen, beacons of civilization on other matters, can bear the thought of the death penalty (and, by the way, not even stop to think what even life in prison means).
    That this is true even at BU, makes it even more shocking.

    To address the “what would you do if you were…” argument in advance:
    a) I knew one of the girls killed, although admittedly not super closely.
    but most importantly
    b) Justice is not a personal affair. The fact that the most affected shall demand vengeance should not have bearings on what justice and ethics demand.

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    1. Justice is both as personal and impersonal an affair as it possibly could be! What could be more personal that being the victim of someone else’s actions, directly or through family. And what could be more impersonal than breaking the set of laws that we tacitly agree to live by. Your ethics may tell you that the taking of life is never justified, but at what point does someone cross the Rubicon of forgiveness? Actions like this push the boundaries of mercy because they themselves are pitiless and as cold-blooded as can be. If you thought hard about it, I’m sure that you could find a hypothetical in which someone else had done you or your family so much harm that you justified their death.

      In other nations, culturally and socially distinct from the United States, the death penalty may seem barbaric. That is their prerogative, and it works for them mostly because of differences in the legal system, eg. Punishment vs. Rehabilitation. I can’t speak for millions of people, but I think you misunderstand that the death penalty is reserved for particularly heinous, gruesome crimes that are accompanied by aggravating factors. It’s not 19th century England where we hang adolescent children for stealing a loaf of bread. It’s for actions like premeditated and vile murder and mass-murder.

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    2. Then what would you recommend if you reject both the death penalty and life in prison? Do you propose that those who have committed atrocities to be released into society? Would you say the same thing for a serial killer or mass rapist? What about repeat offenders who commit the same caliber crime after ever instance of release? What do you propose for those individuals?

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      1. I propose that we at least provide individuals spending life in prison with some form of mental health help, maybe some books, television occasionally. In my opinion, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Solitary confinement for the rest of your life is essentially the highest form of torture. Do you think that the fact that we literally have the highest incarceration rates in the world has anything to do with the fact that we believe every criminal who does something unthinkably disturbing should be killed? I think the two are correlated.

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      2. i too agree no solitary confinement and no death..as far as i care dzhokhar is innocent i have followed this case since day 1 flew to boston for the july court date seen him in court and the guy didn’t do this his lawyers are saying he did it because they told him otherwise hes gonna get the death penalty and life is better im not sure of that i think instead of years and year in solitary which is proven really messes with your head id rather get death. its really going to be sad when 20 years go by and hes one of these people they find out was wrongly accussed and is released and at that time his whole young life is already gone and at that point i hope all you haters feel like crap

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        1. Can you explain why you think he’s innocent? I don’t understand where you’re coming from with this and basically all evidence points at his guilt, as far as I know — he was also found guilty in trial.

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  6. I think that none of us really has the say to decide the sentence, the punishment he should receive, even the families or friends of the victims don’t really. Only the victims have the say. But 3 of them are already dead.

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    1. Except the point of the Rule of Law is to give the say to society. Society is asked to shoulder the burden of punishment in the place of the victims. If victims were to have a say any murderer would be released because there would be no one to judge them.

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  7. He put a bomb next to an 8 year-old boy (his name was Martin). There’s no way for him to be rehabilitated, he’s lost the right to live. The death penalty is an effective way to say “this is unacceptable” and should be used here.

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  8. Give him the death penalty! I dont want to know he is alive living off my tax money enjoying an AC prison ,watching soaps and playing basketball..The USA system is too lax when it comes to punishment. On another note the Boston Police that got shot recently and survived -the criminal who shot him was shot dead (good thing) -he shot at a police office prior to this occurance -this shows how easy it is for criminals to get away with murder..NO MORE !!!

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    1. FYI- death penalty is by far more expensive than living in prison for the rest of your life. I’m sick of this comment people make saying they don’t want to waste their tax dollars…sorry, but you don’t really get to choose where your tax dollars go. You live in America where we have lots of benefits, lots of programs to help people, and lots and lots and LOTS of prisons to keep the streets “safe” for people like you…sorry, but because of the three things I just mentioned, plus many more, taxes ain’t goin no where buddy, get used to it. Also get used to paying for things in your taxes that you don’t agree with. We’re all adults here, sometimes you gotta grow up and learn to take the good with the bad.

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      1. Then how about this: The worst, most deadly terrorists this country captured went to Guantanamo, presumably for life or for a very long time. The president decided he didn’t think they should be kept in prison, and has let many of them go, or even traded several for a known American military deserter who joined the enemy. The majority of those released have already returned to being active terrorists, committed to destroying our country and our fellow Americans.

        The thought of Dzhokar Tsarnaev being released and not serving our his sentence, whether life in prison or death, is pretty unsettling.

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    2. hey mr jerk fyj he won’t be able to watch basket ball games he will go to prison with sams in full effect for the rest of his life solitary confinement outside 1 time a week for an hour no tv no radio no books does that make you happy

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  9. i don’t know. Killing someone is never the right thing to do, no matter what (in my opinion). I believe an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, regardless of the crime. But, I sometimes think that life in prison, in a cell by yourself for the rest of your life, 23 hours a day, is WORSE than death, and I honestly don’t see how this can be disputed. So, for all yall saying you want the death penalty, I’m assuming you want the death penalty because of the severity of his actions…but, if he dies, there’s no more suffering for him, he’ll be free. I don’t believe in religion, so I believe that when he dies, he’ll just cease to exist. Essentially, we’ll be putting him out of his misery. Also, if we kill him, he’ll think of it as a good thing because he believes that when you die for what you believe in, you become a martyr in God’s eyes.

    So, I think the death penalty is inhumane and wrong, no matter what. I also think rotting in a cell for the rest of your life is wrong and inhumane, in fact, it’s torture. Think about it, what is the point in punishing him to the point of making him go insane if he’s never getting out of prison again? But, we can’t just let these criminals go unpunished, we’ve got to set an example for society of what’s wrong and right. I know this is wishful thinking in a society that treats the capture of criminals as a celebratory experience, but I really wish our criminal justice system would fix their methods of incarceration. I realize that criminals who commit such terrible crimes don’t deserve to see the light of day ever again, but doesn’t every human being at least deserve a tiny bit of understanding? I mean, if these people are going to sit in a cell for the rest of their life, might as well at least let them learn something, give them books to read, SOMETHING. yes, I’ll probably get a huge amount of backlash, but this is just my own opinion. I respect everyone’s opinion no matter how radical. (I do believe that Dzhokhar should spend the rest of his life in prison, absolutely no question, my issue is that no matter what he did, the idea of someone sitting in a cell for 70 years, 23 hours a day makes my brain literally want to explode- so, I believe that he, and others serving life, should be given at least a little bit more help in terms of his mental health- everyone deserves it)

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    2. Did not the four people murdered by these two brothers deserve to live? Did not all those maimed and damaged by these two brothers not deserve to have just gone home at the end of the Marathon, walking and with all their limbs? Did not their families and friends deserve not to suffer with the memories of the victims torn apart by the cruelest of shrapnel bombs, for the rest of their lives?

      I am not so sure that Dzhokhar “deserves” anything but the punishment determined in the penalty phase of this trial.

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      1. trials over where is the govt smoking gun that he did this yeah they showed different tapes of the bombs going off thats it there was no smoking gun of him setting this bomb off…why…because he is innocent…funny because his lawyer said he did it that means he did it no it doesnt it means his lawyer doenst want him to die

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        1. They have testimonies from people who were there … people have identified him as one of those placing the bomb, and another witness testified to being told by him and his brother that they were responsible for the bombs.
          If you truly believe that he is innocent, I do have one question for you: who did it? Was it all his brother in your opinion, or was the culprit not actually found?

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  10. I’ll just put it out there now that this post is not going to be philosophical, or “logical”. Maybe I’m biased because this son of a b**** scumbag attacked this city, this country, but he deserves absolute Hell. Don’t let him die a martyr, it’s what he wants. That’s my logic: don’t give this scumbag what he wants.

    I hate him. I absolutely hate him.

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