What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Townhall reported yesterday that the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of two asylum-seeking brothers who blew up the Boston Marathon, has been overturned by a U.S. Appeals Court.

The article reports:

Dzhokhar’s lawyers argued that the terrorist himself was a victim of intense media coverage and an unfair jury trial. The attack on the 2013 Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded around 280 others. Many of the victims lost limbs and suffered other horrific injuries. 

“A core promise of our criminal-justice system is that even the very worst among us deserve to be fairly tried and lawfully punished,” reads the federal appeals court ruling vacating Dzhokhar’s death sentence. 

In 2015, a jury found Dzhokhar guilty on all 30 charges against him and sentenced the bomber to death. But because Dzhokhar had destroyed the lives of so many Bostonians, his defense attorneys have successfully argued that his death sentence was unfair because the trial should have been moved to a different city — presumably a city where Dzhokhar didn’t kill people. Dzhokhar told investigators that he and his brother’s next target was planned for New York City’s Times Square.

Dzhokhar will be given a new trial on the basis that his previous trial was unfair and should have been moved to a different city.

Let’s contrast that with the trial of General Michael Flynn. After a federal appeals court Wednesday ordered a trial judge to dismiss the case against President Trump’s first national security adviser, Micheal Flynn, the judge refused to dismiss the case.

On July 30th, The Business Insider reported:

A key federal appeals court in Washington DC agreed Thursday to reexamine the fight over whether former Trump national security adviswer Michael Flynn’s guilty plea can be summarily dismissed.

The new order from 10 members of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit comes a little over a month after a three-judge panel there ordered a lower federal district court judge who is overseeing the case against Flynn to dismiss the prosecution at the Justice Department’s request.

Recently declassified information on the Flynn case indicates that General Flynn was targeted as a way to tarnish the Trump administration (article here). There is enough information out there to prove that General Flynn’s guilty plea was coerced and that the charges against him should be dismissed.

Contrast the way our courts are treating someone who was caught after executing a terrorist act and a patriot who served our country for many years. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

The Verdict Is In

The Associated Press is reporting that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted on all charges Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing by a federal jury. The question now is whether or not he will receive the death penalty.

The article reports:

Tsarnaev folded his arms, fidgeted and looked down at the defense table as he listened to one guilty verdict after another on all 30 counts against him, including conspiracy and deadly use of a weapon of mass destruction. Seventeen of those counts are punishable by death.

The verdict – reached after a day and a half of deliberations – was practically a foregone conclusion, given his lawyer’s startling admission at the trial’s outset that Tsarnaev carried out the terror attack with his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan.

Tsarnaev‘s defense lawyer, Judy Clarke, has argued that Tsarnaev, who was nineteen at the time of the bombing, committed the crime because he was under the influence of his older brother, Tamerlan. That may be so, but it doesn’t excuse what he did. Tsarnaev had (and has) free choice in choosing his actions, and now he is being called to take responsibility for those actions.

Whatever happens to Tsarnaev, the victims of the bombing will never be able to go back to where they were before the event–the loved ones will still be lost and the major injuries will still be there. Executing Tsarnaev will not change anything that has happened, but I am not sure anything will be gained by keeping him alive either.

 

The Right Reponse To Tackiness

Rolling Stone featured a very flattering picture of the alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its August cover. Mayor Thomas Menino sent a letter to Rolling Stone with the appropriate response.

This is the letter the Mayor of Boston sent to Rolling Stone:

That is the correct response.

 

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