05-13-2015, 08:09 PM
PENALTY DELIBERATIONS UNDERWAY
The jury is now considering whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be sentenced to life without parole or death.
I'm starting to think it's more likely that Maggot is right about Tsarnaev escaping the death penalty.
Even though it's a federal case and the jurors are death-penalty qualified, the fact that the jurors are from a state that bans the death penalty, added to the fact that Tsarnaev had about the best mitigation defense attorneys and witnesses possible, might save his ass.
I think if he and his brother had bombed an event in Texas, I'd feel like much more confident at this point that he'd end up on death row, no matter how good his penalty phase defense.
In my opinion, if one believes in the death penalty, the crimes committed by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev make him a prime candidate to receive it since he is perfectly sane.
But, Judy Clarke presented all kinds of witnesses testifying as to what a good kid he was, how much influence his older brother had over him, how tumultuous his home life had been, etc...
She also called prominent death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean who testified that he expressed genuine sorrow for the victims.
![[Image: Sister-Helen-Prejean-278x400.jpg]](http://oregonoptimist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Sister-Helen-Prejean-278x400.jpg)
"No one deserves to suffer like they did," ^ Prejean quoted him as saying.
Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun whose story was told in the 1995 movie "Dead Man Walking," starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, met with Tsarnaev five times since March at the request of the defense.
Prejean, who smiled at Tsarnaev several times during her testimony, said she could hear "pain" in his voice when he said he regretted what happened to the victims in the 2013 attack, which left three people dead and more than 260 wounded.
"I had every reason to think that he was taking it in and that he was genuinely sorry for what he did," Prejean testified as the final witness for the defense in the penalty phase of the trial.
Prosecutors had fought unsuccessfully to keep Prejean off the witness stand.
If I had to place odds, I'd say 55⁄45 in favor of a death verdict.
Related Sources:
-Good overview of penalty phase trial: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/bos....html?_r=0
-Prejean testimony piece: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/boston-...ry-n357071
The jury is now considering whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be sentenced to life without parole or death.
I'm starting to think it's more likely that Maggot is right about Tsarnaev escaping the death penalty.
Even though it's a federal case and the jurors are death-penalty qualified, the fact that the jurors are from a state that bans the death penalty, added to the fact that Tsarnaev had about the best mitigation defense attorneys and witnesses possible, might save his ass.
I think if he and his brother had bombed an event in Texas, I'd feel like much more confident at this point that he'd end up on death row, no matter how good his penalty phase defense.
In my opinion, if one believes in the death penalty, the crimes committed by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev make him a prime candidate to receive it since he is perfectly sane.
But, Judy Clarke presented all kinds of witnesses testifying as to what a good kid he was, how much influence his older brother had over him, how tumultuous his home life had been, etc...
She also called prominent death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean who testified that he expressed genuine sorrow for the victims.
"No one deserves to suffer like they did," ^ Prejean quoted him as saying.
Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun whose story was told in the 1995 movie "Dead Man Walking," starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, met with Tsarnaev five times since March at the request of the defense.
Prejean, who smiled at Tsarnaev several times during her testimony, said she could hear "pain" in his voice when he said he regretted what happened to the victims in the 2013 attack, which left three people dead and more than 260 wounded.
"I had every reason to think that he was taking it in and that he was genuinely sorry for what he did," Prejean testified as the final witness for the defense in the penalty phase of the trial.
Prosecutors had fought unsuccessfully to keep Prejean off the witness stand.
If I had to place odds, I'd say 55⁄45 in favor of a death verdict.
Related Sources:
-Good overview of penalty phase trial: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/bos....html?_r=0
-Prejean testimony piece: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/boston-...ry-n357071