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The verdict is in for the Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and the jury has recommended a death sentence.
The jury only needed 14 hours to reach its verdict on the 17 counts where he could be sentenced to death, and found for the death penalty for six of those. The only other choice for sentencing on those charges would have been life in prison. The attack killed 3 people and injured 264 people. It was the worst attack on US soil since the attack on 9/11.
AlterNet reports:
Their only other option was life without the possibility of release in America's toughest "super-max" prison in Colorado, which some have dubbed the "Alcatraz of the Rockies".
[...] "'No remorse, no apology'. Those are the words of a terrorist convinced he has done the right thing", US assistant attorney Steven Mellin said.
[...] Judge George O'Toole will now formally sentence Tsarnaev at a hearing expected to be held later in the year.
[...] The verdict in the federal case came despite widespread local opposition to capital punishment in Massachusetts, a largely Democratic state that abolished the death penalty in 1947.
Prominent survivors, including the parents of the youngest victim Martin Richard, had also opposed the death penalty on the grounds that years of prospective appeals would dredge up their agony.
[...] Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, only 79 people have been sentenced to die and only three have been executed, says the Death Penalty Information Center. Three other death verdicts were turned into life sentences after new trials were granted.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday May 17 2015, @06:12PM
I hope we can soon return to the values of freedom, justice, and honor that once described the United States.
When was that? When we had slavery? When women couldn't vote? When we had Jim Crow laws? During prohibition? When people's lives were destroyed merely because they were thought to be communists, or because they disagreed with the status quo?
The US is not and never was a bastion of freedom. At most, it was better than a lot of other countries, but it needs to be great all on its own, not merely better than others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @07:34PM
In each for those cases you talked about, America moved on to the next level. Yes, each were not prefect, nor pleasant, nor is America prefect now. But to move forward and get better on "cycle" or "penilum swing".
You may call it A/B testing at work, but America works by A/B testing as a country as a whole. Each state can have its own view. As people move between and talk about A/B, they can see the change in the air. Right now it is "Gay Marriage" working through what appears as the final "roll-out". Next it could be getting more of religon out of the government. Example: Is "Marriage"?
1) government word
2) community word
3) religous word (finer detailed of community)
If it is purely in the past, a religous/community word blessing the couple in front of God or community, then governmetn should change the laws to not used the word "marriage" (currently a sub-part of parternship laws) as the title of act of joining the of two people in to the core of "family" (small person business). At the same time, remove chruches from preforming "legal" joinings. This gets US closer to European style. In the morning you go to the city center to be legally joined, in the afternoon you good in front of your chruch / community and get "married".
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday May 17 2015, @07:42PM
In each for those cases you talked about, America moved on to the next level.
I think you'll find it difficult to find a country that does not change over time, and sometimes for the better. The point of my examples was to demonstrate that people who have this view that the past was better and that we were more free are ignoring all the horrendous violations of people's fundamental liberties that took place. The US was never a bastion of freedom, and neither was any other country. Maybe it will be in the future, but not until we take care of all the policies and laws that violate the constitution and our basic liberties.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @11:23PM
So basically you are arguing with his word choice.