Fate of the war criminal Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: Why he deserves the death penalty

Fate of the war criminal Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: Why he deserves the death penalty

From the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS as an Editorial a few days ago

Guilty as sin

Confronting proof beyond any doubt, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyer branded him responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing as the Islamist radical’s trial began last month. A harrowing 95 witnesses later, jurors will soon formalize his conviction.

Rarely is it fair or wise to make a definitive statement of legal culpability before a jury’s verdict. Here, though, the evidence against Tsarnaev is incontrovertible and his attorney’s calculated admission squarely settled the matter. He is as guilty as sin, and then some.

All that remains to be decided is the sentence to be imposed: death or life without parole.

The U.S. is appropriately seeking capital punishment while Tsarnaev’s lawyers hope to persuade jurors that, at the age of 19, he fell into terrorism under the sway of the true radical, his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan.

Had Tamerlan been brought to trial rather than suffer fatal injuries when run over by a fleeing Dzhokhar, Tamerlan may have been more deserving of death than weak-willed Dzhokhar, defense lawyers argued in pursuit of understanding and mercy for the surviving Tsarnaev.

On this score, it’s impossible to predict how a group of 12 citizens will respond when called upon to sanction an execution, even in retribution for an atrocity as heinous as the Marathon attack.

Support for capital punishment has waned across America as crime has dropped and too many prosecutions have proven to be dubious. More, a good number of people view life without parole as a harsher penalty than a humanely administered death.

What must be remembered is that the Marathon bombing was a direct descendant of 9/11 and, tragically, may be the precursor of bloodshed to come.

It was an attack on the United States, an attack that killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy, an attack that injured 260, an attack that was perpetrated not by street criminals but by military men. Tsarnaev is a voluntary conscript in an expanding hostile army, as was his brother.

“That day they felt they were soldiers,” federal prosecutor Aloke Chakravarty told the jury in his closing argument, adding, “and they were bringing their battle to Boston.”

For Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, that meant standing amid playing children for four minutes before setting down his homemade bomb and walking off.

His computer files were stocked with copies of “Inspire,” the magazine of Al Qaeda. He drew further inspiration from Anwar al-Awlaki, the master Al Qaeda propagandist who encouraged numerous others, including the would-be Times Square bomber, to mount assaults.

Like Tsarnaev, Awlaki was an America citizen. Regardless, in 2011, an American Hellfire missile blew him away in Yemen — no warrant, no indictment, no trial, no sentencing hearing, no lawyer to plead for life imprisonment. He died a war criminal soldier. So must Tsarnaev.