Death Sentence for Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Unsettles City He Tore Apart
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, ABBY GOODNOUGH and JESS BIDGOOD

BOSTON — The finish line of the Boston Marathon is a landmark here, a blue and yellow slash across Boylston Street that has represented pride and achievement for those who stagger across it in one of the great races of the running world.

Since bombs went off here two years ago, all of Boston has claimed the line as a symbol of how this city came together in the smoky, sulfurous aftermath to tend to the dead and the maimed; it came to represent the city’s resilience.

But since a federal jury on Friday sentenced the convicted bomber to death, the finish line suddenly seems to be a place of ambivalence. Fresh flowers are accumulating. A sense of sorrow lingers in the air. Sightseers who come to snap a photo feel a little self-conscious. Residents train their gaze on the line, and the conversations turn to death — and disappointment.

“I was shocked,” said Scott Larson, 47, a records manager who works near the finish line. “The death penalty — for Boston.”

To many, the death sentence almost feels like a blot on the city’s collective consciousness.

To the amazement of people elsewhere, Bostonians overwhelmingly opposed condemning the bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to death. The most recent poll, conducted last month for The Boston Globe, found that just 15 percent of city residents wanted him executed. Statewide, 19 percent did. By contrast, 60 percent of Americans wanted Mr. Tsarnaev to get the death penalty, according to a CBS News poll last month.

No one here felt sympathy for him. Rather, many thought life in prison would be a fate worse than death, especially for someone as young as Mr. Tsarnaev, who is 21. Others feared that putting him to death would make him a martyr. Still others, interviewed around the city Friday night and Saturday, reflected the region’s historical aversion to the death penalty.

Neil Maher, who spent his teenage years in Boston and returned this weekend for his class reunion at Boston College High School, said the verdict had surprised and disappointed him.

“They ought to demonstrate a little humanity,” said Mr. Maher, 66, who lives in Frederick, Md. “Killing a teenager’s not going to do anything. I think it’s just a kind of visceral revenge. I think that in three years, the people of Boston and the people on the jury will feel bad about this decision.”

Like many others, he could not square the death sentence with the sense of Massachusetts exceptionalism that has pervaded Boston since 1630, when the Puritan John Winthrop said this spot in the New World would be “as a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people are upon us.”

Mr. Maher, walking in South Boston on the waterfront, lamented that Massachusetts seemed to be losing its lofty goals and a piece of its unique identity. “The Chinese put a lot of people to death, and we put a lot of people to death, and almost nobody else in the world does,” he said. “It’s kind of a brutal thing. And for this to happen in Massachusetts ...” His voice trailed off.

At the site of the bombing, Jessica Brown, an editor for a technology company, stared at the finish line while a companion from out of state took a photograph. The sentence had taken her, too, by surprise.

“I really thought they were going to do life in prison,” said Ms. Brown, who expressed some philosophical doubt about the death penalty.

“It raises the question of, should we react to murder with murder?” she said.

For her, the question hit close to home because she lives in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, near Bill and Denise Richard. The couple’s 8-year-old son, Martin, was killed by one of the bombs — but they nonetheless made an open plea to the government to drop its pursuit of the death penalty and send Mr. Tsarnaev to prison instead.

Some of the survivors of the bombings and their relatives felt very differently. Many supported the death penalty and expressed relief on Friday when word emanated from the courtroom that the jury had chosen it. Most were solemn, not triumphant.

“I feel justice for my family,” said Liz Norden, who went to court almost every day during the trial and whose sons, Paul and J. P., lost legs in the blasts. “I have to watch my two sons put a leg on every day, so, I mean, I don’t know — closure? But I can tell you, it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”

Most public officials were noncommittal, if they made statements at all. Mayor Martin J. Walsh said he hoped the verdict would bring closure to the survivors, telling reporters later on Saturday: “I don’t think there’s any punishment too great for him.”

The jurors themselves — the ones who sat in court day in and day out and heard the wrenching testimony of survivors, saw all the gruesome evidence and watched Mr. Tsarnaev slouch in his chair — were unflinching. They found him guilty last month of all 30 counts against him and then, on Friday, rejected the defense’s case wholesale and sentenced him to death after deliberating for 14 hours.

The jury was “death qualified” — each juror had to be open to the death penalty; anyone who opposed it could not serve. In that sense, the federal jury did not reflect the general population of the region. Massachusetts abolished the death penalty for state crimes in 1984 and has not carried out an execution since 1947.

Still, some people outside the courtroom did favor death for Mr. Tsarnaev.

Peggy Fahey, a lifelong Bostonian who was sipping coffee on a park bench in South Boston early Saturday, said she believed that Mr. Tsarnaev had been treated too gently since his arrest and that death was what he irrefutably deserved.

“Oh, please, let him die. Enough is enough,” said Ms. Fahey, 78, her blue eyes blazing. “Why send him to a fancy prison out there in Colorado and let him be coddled again and let him be interviewed by Diane Sawyer — you know what I mean? Just be done with it.”

But many more seemed to share the view of Priscilla Winter, 56, an elementary school teacher from Dorchester who was strolling along the South Boston waterfront. To her, the verdict felt morally wrong.

“Martin Richard’s parents didn’t believe it was right, so how is anyone else supposed to?” Ms. Winter asked, her voice rising.

“It didn’t happen to me,” she said. “I didn’t lose anybody. I didn’t lose a leg. I wasn’t there. But to hear somebody who was affected that much — they lost a son — for them to be that way?”

Ms. Winter’s walking companion, Liam Larkin, 57, said he lived around the corner from the Richards. Like them, he said, he wanted the closure that a life sentence would have brought.

“I think the best way of punishing him would be to send him to the Supermax,” said Mr. Larkin, who works removing lead from old buildings.

“It was horrendous what he did; it really was,” Mr. Larkin said. “But I don’t agree with the death penalty. Even if his brother was alive, and he was the one who instigated the whole thing, I’d say send him to Supermax, too. I think it’s a fit punishment for him, to be honest. More fitting than this.”

Milton and Dania Pouncy, chasing their toddler along the waterfront as planes roared overhead, said they preferred life in prison for Mr. Tsarnaev because he deserved to suffer.

“I think that was too simple, to put him to death,” said Ms. Pouncy, 39, who works in accounts receivable at a hospital. “I think he needs to suffer some. Death is too easy. Once it’s over, it’s over.”

Mr. Pouncy, 47, agreed, adding that he wondered how much solace the death penalty could provide for survivors. “The families who lost people are still going to be numb. Maybe they’ll feel like a little bit of justice has been done, but all in all, it’s not going to bring their loved ones back.”

波士頓馬拉松炸彈客 判死刑

美國聯邦陪審團十五日就兩年前的波士頓馬拉松賽恐怖攻擊案做成裁決，判處廿一歲的炸彈客查納耶夫死刑。查納耶夫可能成為美國自911恐怖攻擊案發生後，第一個遭處決的恐怖分子，但此案依法將自動上訴，過程可能拖上數年或甚至數十年。

十二人陪審團經過十四小時長考後，宣布他們達成一致的死刑裁決。四月八日，同一陪審團認定查納耶夫的卅項罪名全部成立，十五日，陪審團就其中六項作成死刑判決。

辯方主要辯護理由是，查納耶夫的兄長因為美國在伊斯蘭國家發動戰爭而想懲罰美國，查納耶夫是受兄長影響才犯案，但陪審團未予採納且認為他毫無悔意。檢方指查納耶夫為冷血殺手，甚至故意把炸彈放在一個八歲小男孩旁邊使之喪生。

2013年四月十五日波士頓馬拉松賽進行期間，查納耶夫和哥哥塔默蘭．查納耶夫在終點線附近放置壓力鍋炸彈，造成三死兩百六十人傷，塔默蘭在警方追緝過程中死亡。查納耶夫兄弟為車臣裔，幼時隨父母移民美國。查納耶夫聆判時，表情嚴肅、略低著頭、雙手交疊，對陪審團宣判毫無反應。這是九一一事件發生以來美國聯邦檢方首次說服陪審團在恐攻案中做出死刑裁決。

波士頓居民得知死刑判決普遍鬆了口氣。腿部被彈片所傷的布拉沙德說：「我們總算可以再度呼吸了。」

法官將擇日正式宣布查納耶夫死刑，他的案件將自動上訴到高等聯邦法院，因此他的死刑要等到繁複的聯邦上訴過程整個走完後，才會執行，可能是數年或甚至數十年後。

美國聯邦1988年恢復死刑，但迄今僅三人被處決，包括2001年處決1995年奧克拉荷馬市聯邦大樓爆炸案嫌犯麥克維。查納耶夫最後可能被送往印第安納州聯邦監獄的死囚牢，這也是麥克維伏法處。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/us/death-sentence-for-boston-bomber-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-unsettles-city-he-tore-apart.html

2015-05-17．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯王麗娟