The Tsarnaev sentence has come down, and it’s death. I wrote about this back in April… I find it very disappointing, but not surprising. It appears that since then the opinions of Massachusetts have not turned in favour of capital punishment.
I’m not surprised by the verdict, but I have been surprised by the some of the reactions. It has been a very polarizing verdict. People I otherwise respect are cheering the verdict, and generally for terrible reasons.
There seems to be a trend of people who dislike with capital punishment in general, but want it in this specific case. What they should realize is that every case will look like this if it’s known in enough detail. Everyone personally affected will have that emotional reaction to a case.
This is where you need to examine your reasons for being for or against capital punishment. If you are against capital punishment because of one specific case you know of where it was a bad idea, that’s not a very good reason to oppose the general case. If you are for capital punishment because of one specific case where it was a good idea, that not a very good reason to support the general case.
There are other reasons that can work better, though. Things like whether you trust or distrust the government with that sort of power… and if the answer is trust, whether you trust or distrust the next government with that sort of power.
Things like whether you think the police and prosecutors are acting in good faith… and whether you would support the death penalty for prosecutors who got it wrong.
Whether you think it does or doesn’t act as a deterrent. And how much evidence that conclusion is based on, and what you would do if new evidence came to light.
And if that doesn’t work… well, I guess at least it’s good for pruning the dead wood out of the social media accounts, in much the same way as Baltimore and Ferguson have been.
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