Pamela Simmons: I believe that the death penalty is ridiculous. No lesson learned - the young man is getting what he wanted. He is looking forward to dying. He believes in what he did.
He should be in a jail cell for the rest of his life. It costs more to house inmates on death row, in housing and in appeals. He shouldn't be allowed interviews, either; to glamorize what he's done is almost worse than the act itself.
Christian Avard: We don't have to forgive Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the Boston Marathon attacks, but we cannot become what we hate in others. Justice with revenge is as sick and twisted as the Tsarnaev brothers.
Jim Hart: Death row does not let prisoners publish stories for one thing. For another, the cost is no different on death row or in a cell in any jail, and my opinion is that it's what Tsarnaev deserves.
Judy McGee: I am not a proponent of the death penalty. And in this case, it is going to be years before he is actually put to death (due to all the appeals). But he has shown no remorse and knew there were children who would be injured when he put the bomb down.
So I guess I am torn on this one.
Susie Webster-Toleno: As I understand it, being opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds makes one all but ineligible to serve on juries that are called to serve on capital trials. I would think that would create an environment that predisposes juries unfairly.
I am opposed to the death penalty on principle. I understand any individual wanting very badly to kill Tsarnaev, but I do not want any arm of our government deciding that some people don't deserve to live.
What's more, killing Tsarnaev does not undo the carnage he wrought. It heaps violence (ours) on top of violence (his). We should be better than that.
Steve West: Perhaps the U.S. should come up with a definitive list of which types of homicide are acceptable.
For example, if a person kills innocent people and children with explosives, and killing is wrong, should that person also be killed, since that kind of homicide (the first one) is wrong?
Similarly, if one drops drone-delivered bombs on innocent people and children in foreign countries, what should be the punishment (if any) for ordering or committing that act using the U.S. military?
We really ought to make it clear, once and for all, which kind of killing is the good kind and which is the bad kind.
Remember: killing people for killing people = good killing; killing people who never killed anyone = bad killing.
Unless they happen to be in a foreign country and get in the way of our war(s). Then it's “regrettable” killing.
David R. Locke: I'm against the death penalty. We do not have the right to take a life, any more than Tsarnaev did. Our taking his life will not right the wrong. But then again, I didn't lose anyone close to me through his act, so many might tell me to take a hike.
But I could reply that I have lost two people very near and dear to me to cancer. We cannot inflict capital punishment on cancer. Nor can we on Nature for those tornadoes that took lives in Texas and Arkansas.
So, simply because it happened to be a person who took the lives of people in Boston, the bereaved have the luxury of vengeance? This is all it is, because those lives will not be spared after the fact for Tsarnaev's execution. Nor will those who were maimed attain their full abilities - as if nothing had happened - if we execute him.
Marilyn Buhlmann: I think causing another person's death is wrong, even if that person committed heinous crimes.
I also think that life imprisonment would be a worse punishment than execution.
Tom Bedell: An eye for an eye, if you believe in the Bible. But I don't.
Andrea Cadwell Lynes: “'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord.” (But then you get into questions about the difference between vengeance and justice.)
Gene Herman: Not to mention the difference between the Lord and the state.
Terry Martin: By the way, “an eye for an eye” went out with the New Testament as the Bible brings us into the Age of Grace!
Pleun Bouricius: Apart from my personal opinion on the death sentence, I do not feel justice would be done either way.
We have a judicial system to isolate justice from revenge. But we don't. Our justice system is, in fact, very much based on revenge.
A justice system should mete out the same justice to everyone who commits the same crime. We know we do not - that race, for instance, matters.
Also, a person should get the punishment to which she or he is sentenced. Life imprisonment should be not worse than a death sentence because it is a life sentence to being beaten up and raped.
Rather, it should be worse because one has a lifetime to be locked up. The fact that we see it the way we do says something terrible about our justice system.
Similarly, it seems very wrong that Tsarnaev gets the death sentence in a state that has abolished it - in other words, making what he did a federal crime just so he can get the death sentence.
Given that we don't have this punishment, it is an injustice to sentence him to death. He does not get the same justice as another person who kills people in Massachusetts.
I don't see that his motivation or that of a serial killer are any different, or that it should matter whether he shows remorse.
Chrissy Howe: I think that the families of the victims said that a death sentence would only prolong their suffering as Jahar Tsarnaev will inevitably exercise his right to appeal.
I think making special exceptions to an “abolished” death penalty is dangerous and bloodthirsty.
Clearly, I'm anti–death penalty, but more so I'm against the entire privatized prison establishment and the idea that “crime” is paying some ubiquitous billion-dollar corporation.
So, a suffering life trapped in a windowless American prison cell with an hour of daylight in a yard would be death enough for anyone.
Laura Austan: I don't think any government should have the right to kill anyone, so I think it's wrong.
Lynn Bedell: The very idea that we would consider killing someone is reprehensible. I don't by any means condone what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did, but if we kill someone in cold blood, does that make us any better than he is?
Dorothy Grover Read: I do not believe in the death penalty, and I do not believe it sends a message that prevents future crimes. In this case, it will make this person a martyr, which could actually spark more violent behavior.
I also think that the victims' families will suffer more through the prolonged appeals process that could take decades, so it is lose-lose-lose for everyone - Tsarnaev, the families, and our society.
Piyali Summer: It's practical. I'd rather devote the resources to preventing others from becoming killers and criminals and addicts, than waste them on someone who's already gone rotten. Put that money into lead-paint remediation for instance and childhood poverty, instead of paying for lifelong incarceration for the clearly guilty.
Deborah Lowery: What Tsarnaev did was heinous and disgusting. Then I visualized one of those death chambers and the folks doing the injections and others observing. I felt a sickness in my stomach and a great sadness in my heart. The whole process seems sick.
I do not believe he should be martyred anyway. But I guess the only other option is a bare cell with no benefits and the minimal of cuisine. No conversation either. Give him lots of time to think about things, living in a cell with only minimal needs of life provided. And no appeals, either.
Ray Wilson: An extended trial followed by appeals with lawyers at his side ain't “cold blood.” The celerity of punishment has far more to do with preventing future crime than severity or even the logical appropriateness to the crime.
I personally oppose the death penalty, for that reason, with the single exception of where the simple existence of the penalty on the books actually can logically have some preventative effect. That is in the killing of a law enforcement officer by fugitives trying to evade capture.
Cops and prison guards do, at times, wind up in situations negotiating for their lives. It is not that officers' lives are worth more than others, but they often put their lives on the line in that exact situation, and a felon can have everything to gain or lose in the decision to pull the trigger. The certainty of the death penalty there creates a possibly life-saving tool.
It is not vengeance, but the message being sent.
Gene Herman: Setting aside my general opposition to the death penalty for a moment, didn't the judge, the prosecutor, and jurors realize that imposing this sentence plays right into the hands of the radical Islamists by providing them with another martyr to celebrate and elevate?
Sure, I understand the immense pressure to extract vengeance upon Tsarnaev for this horrific crime that all concerned parties were subjected to, but this outcome seems like yet another example of the cultural tone-deafness that got us into the mess in the Middle East in the first place that we are currently mired in.
Terry Martin: I fully agree with the death penalty in cases like this.
Death penalties should have a 90-day appeals process, and if the appeal is lost, the execution should be carried out within the week. If not, so be the life sentence. Life sentences are not punishment in today's prison systems (let alone those of the past).
Capital punishment brings closure: no 20-year appeals, no justice undone, and no reliving over and over and over, as it would be every time a new appeal is filed.
When confessions are given openly and freely, and clear evidence of DNA and technology (as we saw in this case), justice and closure needs to take place with no sitting on Death Row for years and years at society's expense.
Ken Schneck: Capital punishment = killing is bad. You should not kill. And to make sure you understand that, we're going to kill you.
Terry Martin: We need to understand that there is a difference between “killing” and “murder.”
Ken Schneck: Terry, I just looked that up and found “The Difference Between Killing and Murdering”.
Which indicates that the difference between them is the element of malice. I guess I have a hard time believing that there is absolutely no malice in capital punishment, even if it is completely shrouded in “justification.”
Terry Martin: Thanks, Ken! Key Word: “justification.”
Paul Maloney: Life with no parole in general population. The inmates will take veeeery good care of him.
Peter MacDonald: Main stream in prison would be a death sentence.
Paul Maloney: So true, a lot faster then sitting on death row.
Tracy Grenier: I'm conflicted. I think life without parole is a more severe punishment. As a taxpayer, I am opposed to having to support him.
Margot Stone: There is no adequate sentence. Those jurors had a hard job.
Although I do not believe in state-sanctified murder, I generally trust the jury system. It's prosecutors who make me nervous.