Update, 3:42 p.m.: A federal jury in Boston unanimously sentenced Dzhokar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.
Earlier this week, a federal jury in Boston found accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 counts against him. The trial now moves to the sentencing phase, where a jury will decide between life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty.
The high-profile trial has put capital punishment in the national spotlight once again. After a series of botched executions in Arizona and Oklahoma because of the short supply of the drugs used for lethal injection, the death penalty has come under fire as a form of "cruel and unusual punishment." Earlier this year, the Supreme Court heard arguments from three botched executions that took place in the last year.
Tsarnaev's lawyers, and lead defense attorney Judy Clarke, have made careers for themselves out of sparing criminals from the death penalty. Clarke defended the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, in 1998, and Jared Loughner, who shot Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, and is considered especially talented at keeping her high-profile criminals off death row.
Public support for the death penalty is also shifting. According to a 2014 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans are still in favor of capital punishment, but that number is in decline. And in Boston, where the federal trial is taking place, capital punishment may be off the table.
Patrick Metze, a professor in Texas Tech's School of Law, teaches a seminar on capital punishment, and says the decidedly more liberal atmosphere in Massachusetts- not to mention the state ban of the death penalty - may affect the jury's debate on whether to spare Tsarnaev.
"Are they going to die when it's their time to die, when their body quits working? Or, are they going to die at an artificial time, brought about by the government?"
"The people in Massachusetts - if they can be convinced to execute this young man, I’ll be surprised," Metze said. "So I think the chances of there being at least one person on that jury who is sympathetic to his plea is highly likely."
Metze said that the death penalty is an ineffective form of punishment - "it’s not going to return any of the dead, or repair the injured, to kill this young man" - and is mostly politics at play.
"Prosecutors are politicians, even on the federal level. Those prosecutors, that are prosecuting this case, and seeking the death penalty, have got political ambitions. They may not be long-term, or to do something other than being a prosecutor, but I guarantee you, its politics that’s driving it."
Lubbock Criminal District Attorney Matt Powell has sought the death penalty roughly a dozen times in his tenure as prosecutor, and he said factoring politics into trials is nothing more than fulfilling an obligation to his constituents.
"What I’m charged to do with is what I think the citizens of Lubbock County would want, or what they think justice is, in a particular case," Powell said. "And if you take a poll – and this is true across the United States, much less in Lubbock County – if you take a poll across the United States, most people are still in favor of some sort of capital punishment, some form of the death penalty on certain cases."
According to Metze, and the Death Penalty Information Center, executing a criminal costs far more money than housing them in the general prison population.
"It’s much more expensive to execute someone than it is just to house them in a prison, like you would any other murderer, until they die. The question is not whether or not the person is going to die in prison. They are going to die in prison. The question is, are they going to die when it’s their time to die, when their body quits working? Or, are they going to die at an artificial time, brought about by the government. That’s the decision."
Powell said he's never let cost dissuade him from seeking the death penalty, though there are other expenses that capital punishment trials incur, like the diversion of legal resources to trials from other areas. Powell also said he doesn't view the cost of death penalty trials as a valid excuse to not seek it.
"I don't ever want to look a mom in the eye and go, 'I could have stopped him. And I didn't do it.'"
"Any time you start trying to decide justice by a dollar sign, I think you’ve really screwed up," Powell said. "It may be more expensive, but if you had a second mom that you’re looking in the eye and saying, 'You know, I could’ve stopped him the first time I dealt with him, but it just cost me too much money.' How do you think that mom is going to feel - you think her son’s worth X amount of dollars, or anything else like that? So I think that’s a moot factor."
Aggravators, or crimes committed in conjunction with a homicide, are the basis for charging an individual with capital punishment.
"Generally it’s something in addition to just the murder," Metze said. "Like you kill more than one person, like they did in this case. There’s different things that qualify it and enhance the crime. They call [them] aggravators."
Powell said aggravators - like killing a police officer in the line of duty, or murder during a robbery - need to be stopped before they take place again. The death penalty is one such way, he said.
"The crime is a number one factor, it’s the number one factor in trying to make that decision," Powell said. "Obviously, if you’re dealing with a guy that’s [done] multiple, multiple violent offenses, just continues the violence, just keeps escalating, escalating, then I think that’s a necessary thing."
If capital punishment is meant to be a deterrent, Metze said, then executions should be a lot more public. But he's still uncomfortable with justifying what Judy Clarke called "legalized homicide."
"It's a little too Old Testament for me," Metze said.
Powell, from a prosecutorial vantage point, admits that part of his job is grim. But he views it as completely necessary, and as much preventative as it is punitive.
"I don’t think the death penalty is a deterrent, Powell said. "I don’t think anyone walks into 7-Eleven and goes, 'You know, if I shoot the clerk, Matt Powell is going to seek the death penalty.' That’s ridiculous to argue that. But it’s a deterrent for the individual that you’re seeking it on. And that’s all that matters.
"I don’t ever want to look a mom in the eye and go, 'I could’ve stopped him. And I didn’t do it.'"
