Yesterday, Wednesday, April 8th, was an important
day in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but it is not over quite yet. Tsarnaev
was found guilty on all 30 counts against him, 17 of which make him eligible
for the death penalty. Now, the defense and prosecution will continue to go
back and forth, with Tsarnaev’s life on the line. According to CNN legal
analyst Paul Callan, the defense is “climbing the Mount Everest of death
penalty cases.” It is likely that Tsarnaev’s defense attorney, Judy Clarke,
will point to the fact that Tsarnaev was radicalized by his older brother and
was simply following his older brother’s lead.
This case is no longer a question of what happened, the
facts are widely agreed upon. For me, it is a moral question of whether or not
Tsarnaev deserves to die for what he did. On one hand, he intentionally killed
and injured many people. The manhunt for he and his brother wreaked haven on
the city of Boston and the surrounding area, and he instilled fear in a whole
nation. The most important thing to me though, is the fact that he was only
three years older than me, and living in a country where he felt out of place.
While he knew fully what he was doing, he was doing it for reasons that he had
been taught were real and just. In my opinion, as long as he doesn’t pose a
threat to anyone in prison, a life sentence is enough. He still has way more
than half of his life left, which is surely long enough to grow and reflect on
what he did.
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