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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Our View: Scouting then and now ... Jeffrey Gillespie: The United States and Iran make a deal ... Guest Opinion: Synthetic turf is the wrong answer ... Our View: Scouting then and now ... Jeffrey Gillespie: The United States and Iran make a deal ... Guest Opinion: Synthetic turf is the wrong answer ... COMMENTARY Chris Honoré: The penalty phase of the bombing trial Comment By Chris Honoré DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré Posted Apr. 13, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Chris Honoré Posted Apr. 13, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News On a glorious spring day, April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon was winding down. People were gathered at the finish line, leaning on barriers, clapping as runners finished the long and demanding race. Suddenly, in a moment that today seems almost surreal, two bombs were detonated, exploding 12 seconds apart, wounding some 260 people, many grievously, and killing three, the youngest 8-year-old Martin Richards. Fourteen people required the amputation of a limb. Some were traumatic amputations. All were life altering. After a harrowing manhunt, and the examination of videotapes from the scene of the explosion, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were identified as the bombers. Tamerlan was later killed as he and Dzhokhar fled; the younger brother was discovered hiding in a power boat under a tarp in the backyard of a resident of Watertown. Dzhokhar has since been held in federal custody awaiting the trial that has just concluded. He was prosecuted for acting in a “heinous, cruel and depraved manner” and has shown no remorse since the bombing. He was found guilty on all of the counts as charged, though his defense team argued that he was not the person who planned the bombing; rather, he merely assisted his brother in its execution. Because Dzhokhar was tried in federal and not state court, the death penalty has been a possible outcome of the trial from the beginning; the jury was selected accordingly. His defense team never disputed their client’s guilt. The evidence, the video of Dzhokhar placing his lethal backpack almost directly behind Martin Richards, is indisputable. What his attorneys are hoping to establish is indirect culpability: He was a young man, immature, who was manipulated by his older brother. None of his fingerprints were found on the bomb fragments. What Dzhokhar’s attorneys know is that the penalty phase of this trial, due to start this week, is what will determine their client’s future for it is then that the jury will decide whether he receives the death penalty, as the federal prosecutors will surely demand, or life without the possibility of parole in a maximum-security federal prison. His defense team will argue that their client was a pawn used by his older brother, Tamerlan, a homegrown terrorist, enthralled by the call for jihad. As an aside, Massachusetts long ago rejected the death penalty. And though the trial is in Boston, the context is federal, which alters everything for the defendant. This penalty phase will certainly bring to the fore once again the debate over the efficacy and the morality of the death penalty, still an integral part of our system of justice. Many will insist that the bombing deserves the death penalty. Dzhokhar is guilty. There is no inherent ambiguity. His crime was monstrous and despicable, and his indifference to the pain and suffering of the victims and their families was and is palpable and disgusting. But could it not be argued that our system of justice should not be obfuscated by emotion or our need for revenge, no matter how far outside the bounds of decency the act? Dispassion and objectivity are everything. The perpetrator kills, perhaps grotesquely, but we, as a just and humane society, do not. We are not they. There is also the argument that our justice system is not infallible. In trials where crimes have been committed that are equally horrific but far less clear-cut, where the evidence may be far less explicit, and eyewitnesses questionable, there is always the possibility of error. Crimes have been committed against children resulting in their death (incest, rape, torture, great bodily harm) that elicit the reaction that only death is appropriate. But there is the fact that if we kill someone for a crime we believe he or she committed and later learn we were wrong, we cannot, post-execution, unring that bell. Maximum-security prison is one of the most profound circles of hell. It is unimaginable. To be told, as may happen to Dzhokhar, that he will spend the rest of his life in such a place, is to be faced with a searing, existential reality he can’t possibly comprehend. Could death really be worse?  Chris Honoré lives in Ashland. By Chris Honoré DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré Posted Apr. 13, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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