With a death count of three, an injury count of over two hundred and sixty, and an outraged citizen count that lands off the charts, the Boston Marathon Bomber has been in the subject of controversy since he was caught back in April 2014. Chechen brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev created and detonated two pressure cooker bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police and Dzhokhar was found hiding in a boat later that week.
After a long series of failed motions from the defense to have the trial moved to a more impartial location and a lengthy jury selection process, a surprising admission of guilt from Tsarnaev’s defense team began the trial. Arguing the influence of his late brother as the detrimental cause of his participation in the bombing, the defense is using the ‘why’ instead of the ‘what’ to get the acquittal.
Tsarnaev’s demeanor in court is often cool and lackadaisical despite the many charges that carry the option of a death penalty. With over thirty counts including one citing the use of “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Tsarnaev has lost the appeal to remove the death penalty from the table.
Hundreds of petitions have been circling the internet. “He’s just a kid” they say, calling for lessened penalties or a dismissal of the case due to what they call an overwhelming lack of evidence and the “manipulation of the images by the government.” They claim that, like the defense cites, it was the influence of his late brother Tamerlan that caused Dzhokhar to commit such attrocities.
Dzhokhar stopped being a “just a young kid” the second he learned to make a pressure cooker bomb with added shrapnel and choose a “good place” for it. He wasn’t kidnapped by a militant regime with a gun pressed to his head being told to make the bomb and pick a good spot to detonate it or he’s dead. Plain and simple, this “young kid” as these petitioners like to call him is a murderer. He killed three people, including an eight year old boy, and injured 264 others. Maybe his brother did influence him, but there is a limit to the amount you can blame peer pressure or youth.
Double amputations, severe burns, shrapnel wounds, death. That was Tsarnaev’s main goal. He and his brother set off two pressure cooker bombs in order to do as much damage as possible. While he sits calmly behind a table with thousands fighting for his freedom, I don’t know what he’s thinking but I doubt it’s “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong.” Although he’s innocent until proven guilty, he did it; he admits it and so does his defense team. With the death of several and injury of hundreds on his hands, how much should “why” really matter when he has a smirk on his face.