9 essential reads on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
Here are nine key reads on Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whom a jury sentenced to death Friday for his role in the 2013 attack and ensuing events that left four dead and more than 260 injured.
Tsarnaev could have graduated this weekend
Everything could have been different.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could have been graduating from UMass Dartmouth this weekend. Martin Richard, Lingzi Lu, Krystle Campbell, and Sean Collier could still be alive.
Click here to read the full Boston.com article.
After what jurors saw, no simple choice
Maybe even if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev broke down in tears as Bill Richard described his Hobson’s choice of leaving a dying son to save a dismembered daughter, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Maybe even if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s bottom lip quivered as Jess Kensky described losing her second leg nearly two years after losing the first, jurors would have concluded it was too little, too late.
Click here to read the full Boston Globe article.
Why the jury chose death for Tsarnaev, despite Massachusetts’ desire for mercy
The looks on the jurors’ faces told me they wanted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to die. One juror, her eyes red, shook her head slowly, in anger. Another, fighting tears, exhaled as if to purge her feelings. One juror touched another on the shoulder to comfort her.
Click here to read the full Boston Magazine article.
Facing death for Boston bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains an enigma
There was always a vast gulf between Tsarnaev the stoner, whom his friend Tiarrah Dottin described as “cool, fun, laid-back’’, dancing and listening to rap music, smoking weed and drinking with friends and working with disabled children at school; and Tsarnaev the bomber, captured on CCTV standing with sinister intent behind the Richard family on Boylston street, right after dropping his backpack, knowing its deadly contents, turning back to look one last time at the children he would maim and kill.
Click here to read the full Guardian article.
Tsarnaev’s death sentence
There can be a slight shock, in a high-profile capital case, when a jury decides to kill someone who has become familiar to the public. But this is what the death penalty does, and how it functions.
Click here to read the full New Yorker article.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev given death penalty in Boston Marathon bombing
With its decision, the jury rejected virtually every argument that the defense put forth, including the centerpiece of its case — that Mr. Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan, had held a malevolent sway over him and led him into committing the crimes.
Click here to read the full New York Times article.
The fall of the house of Tsarnaev
The Tsarnaevs, at the time of the FBI encounter, could easily have seemed just another floundering, fragmenting family. At its core, one more reckless young man. Or perhaps it was two.
Click here to read the full Boston Globe article.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has the most ferocious lawyer in America defending him
Clarke has taken one notorious death-penalty case after another. There was Ted Kaczynski, the deadly Unabomber, now living out his days in a super-max prison in Colorado, and still furious with his onetime defense attorney (“Judy Clarke is a bitch on wheels and a sicko,’’ he wrote me); Susan Smith, who strapped her two small boys into car seats and then drove them into a lake and watched them drown; Eric Rudolph, the racist and Christian zealot who set off a bomb in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics as part of a spree that killed 2 people and injured 150 more; Zacarias Moussaoui, the al-Qaeda operative accused of helping to plan the September 11 attacks; and Jared Lee Loughner, who opened fire in a parking lot near Tucson, Arizona, in 2011, shooting Representative Gabrielle Giffords through the head and killing six others. Her client list is a catalogue of the worst.
Click here to read the full Vanity Fair article.
To end the anguish, drop the death penalty
We understand all too well the heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed. We were there. We lived it. The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul. We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives.
Click here to read the full Boston Globe article, written by Bill and Denise Richard.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com