ALAN DERSHOWITZ: TSARNAEV ‘DESERVED THE DEATH PENALTY’

            Although Alan Dershowitz is a strong opponent of the death penalty, he still felt that Tsarnaev deserved to be executed for the crime of the Boston Marathon Bombing. This article will explain more.

Alan Dershowitz

INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/alan-dershowitz-dzokhar-tsarnaev-death-sentence/2015/05/15/id/644964/

Alan Dershowitz: Tsarnaev 'Deserved the Death Penalty'

Friday, May 15, 2015 06:54 PM

By: Cathy Burke

There was little doubt Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would get a death sentence: his lawyer had the jury deck "stacked" against her, lawyer Alan Dershowitz tells Newsmax TV.

In an interview with hosts John Bachman and Miranda Khan on "Newsmax Now" on Friday, Dershowitz, author of "Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas," said that "if any case ever deserved the death penalty, this case does."

Tsarnaev's death penalty lawyer, Judith Clarke, "did everything she could possibly do," Dershowitz added. "She started out with a stacked deck," he said, noting that anyone with an objection to the death penalty was excluded from the panel.

"This is a case that if any case ever deserved the death penalty, this case does," he said.

"The planning, the idea of putting bombs next to children knowing you're going to kill them, I have no sympathy whatsoever for Tsarnaev.

"The only real question is whether he suffers more by life in . . . prison or a quick . . .  execution where he becomes a martyr, and where a lot of people support him on his appeal," he said.

Dershowitz said Islamic radicals are certainly "going to make him a martyr – and he wanted to be a martyr."

Even testimony from the victims' family members, survivors, and a nun arguing against the death penalty could not counter what was a "horrible, horrible crime," Dershowitz said.

"One should not, in any way, try to diminish the crime," he said. "You have the young man walking up to children knowing that he's going to blow them apart and without anything but callousness, he puts the bomb there, sets it off and then goes . . . back to his college."

"Certainly, nobody should have any compassion for this man or should have any sense that he's a martyr and deserves any kind of support. He's a horrible, horrible human being."

Yet it's ironic, "a man who mercilessly killed people . . . gets the best lawyer to defend him," Dershowitz said.

"The case did not come out the way he may have wanted, but he certainly can't complain about American justice. He seems to have gotten not only a fair trial, but a fair penalty hearing."

Dershowitz noted the next step in the case will be "a vigorous appeal" by the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

"They'll get a fair shake," he said.