Whatever the final outcome of our usual silly round-robin of indignity about which set of laws to use when prosecuting the surviving Boston bomber, whatever that outcome, one thing seems obvious to me.
After nine full days (so far!) of near full-time television coverage of the event, prosecutors will not be able to seat an impartial trial jury.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
Probably true, but they’ll have to try. Justice is elusive and illusive, is it not? The theory is, I believe, that publicity by-passes the rules of evidence and thereby damages objectivity. On the other hand, I never heard anybody contend that justice is even usually perfect. Case in point: the O.J. Simpson trial. And even with that, we do better than Italy – just ask Amanda Knox. 🙄
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During the OJ trial, I tried very hard to avoid the breathless day by day but it was so pervasive that I still knew every detail at every twist and turn. It was simply in the air we breathed. No avoiding it!
Still, today is different. I just put teevee on for a few minutes – had to turn it right off – and guess hwat the subject is for today? Ahhh,, you know.
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Don’t the Feds need some actual physical evidence linking him directly in some way to the bombing? So far they have some pictures of Dzhokhar talking on his cell phone instead of looking in the direction of the first explosion, and the IEDs found in the carjacked car that “revealed similarities” to the explosives used at the Marathon. It’s circumstantial evidence.
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ojmo, I think they have considerably more than that. Even the video evidence is more compelling – htey see him putting the backpack down and walking away and then the explosion. Throwing explosives at the cops? Telling the driver they hijacked ” That bomb in Boston? I did it.” And what they’re finding at the apartment? Plus, they’ve just gotten started. I think this one won’t be hard to prove.
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Oh yeah, there’s plenty of evidence against him, but I’m talking about the Federal case–the terrorism case–centered around the bombing as stated in the Federal complaint. The carjacking, chase, shooting the MIT cop, are state crimes. The Federal complaint does refer to the carjacking, but it appears it’s there to link–rather tenuously–the explosives found at the scene of the bombing to those found in the hijacked car. BTW, notice the “suicide vest” Tamerlan was supposedly wearing when he died is nowhere in the complaint; now that would have been evidence of terrorism. My point is the the Federal case, without being reinforced by the state crimes, is very weak. Talking on his cell phone, putting down his backpack–it’s all circumstantial. They need hard physical evidence linking him directly to the bombing.
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Had it remained a NY case, there’s no death penalty . . . and we know that the blood lust must be satisfied. Punishment is not enough, revenge must be taken. Our barbaric instincts take over our once-upon-a-time pride that we are a ‘nation of laws’.
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Indeed–one more reason the odds are he’ll get the gurney…
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Frankly, who really cares? Try him; convict him; sentence him to death; drop him in the general population and not have to worry about dealing with some Leftist lawyer’s appeal.
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jonolan, those appeals always happen. It’s how the system gets challenged and proved again and again. Check out the ACLU’s history of filing briefs on behalf of defendants; it’s not at all one sided – they jump in on the right and the left. They’ve supported gun rights. They filed a brief defending Rush Limbaugh in the drug case. Perhaps the perception comes from the fact that the people who staff and speak for the ACLU tend to be more left than right.
I know you aren’t naming the ACLU, but just thought I’d throw that out, since they’re usually assumed to be the big bad lefty boogy-man.
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Moe, if he gets dropped in the General Population it’s a odds on bet that we won’t be saddled with paying for his appeal. 😉 He’ll quickly go the way of Dahmer and the US will finally get some return on the costs of feeding and housing the criminals in prison.
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Ahhh, you meant the general population in prison. Duh.I read that as out among us. Since I’m opposed to the State executing its citizens no matter what, I agree that’s where he belongs – for life. And I very much doubt it’ll be a replay of Dahler; the prisons are full of twisted sick murderers.
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Dahmer. Dahlmer?
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Uh, Moe, he means that Dhamer was murdered in prison by the same types you mentioned.
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I don’t htink they murdered Dahlmer just because he was a murderer; I think they murdered him because he canibalized his victims and that is WAY WAY out of what society – even prison society – will tolerate. It’s just so YUCK!
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I believe the same would standard would apply to the bomber based upon what has happened to jihadis in British prisons and what was feared would happen to Manning if he’d been placed in General Population in the stockade.
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