Feel no pity for him

FOR opponents of the death penalty, the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a difficult test.

His guilt is not in doubt: “It was him,” his lawyer told the federal court jury in Boston. Nor is the severity of his crime: Tsarnaev placed one of the bombs that killed three, maimed or injured more than 260 and shattered the lives of hundreds more.

He also appears to be remorseless despite the testimony of an activist nun on Monday that Tsarnaev was “genuinely sorry.”

Minutes after the attack, he strolled into a store to buy milk. All those considerations tempt us to change our long-held opposition to the death penalty, as long as life without parole is the alternative. And the answer? No – but not out of any sympathy for Tsarnaev.

Laws aren’t written for a single individual, and the death penalty applies to many people.

Unique among penalties, death requires certainty, a perfect system of justice the nation has yet to achieve. More than 150 death-row prisoners have been exonerated since 1972 – some by subsequent trials, others through dismissals or when DNA proved that they were innocent.

Capital punishment also is discriminatory. A defendant is more likely to be sentenced to death if he is poor, if he is black or most certainly if his victim is white.

And to what end? There’s no credible evidence that it deters crime. Tsarnaev certainly wasn’t deterred by the execution of terrorist Timothy McVeigh, who took 168 lives in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

It’s not even clear that a death sentence is more punishing.

If the jury, which could start deciding Tsarnaev’s sentence as soon as today, votes for life without parole, the 21-year-old will be locked down as much as 23 hours a day in a tiny cell.

If the jury opts for capital punishment, on the other hand, years of appeals will likely follow.

No one should shed any tears for Tsarnaev. He is a terrorist who slaughtered innocent people as if it were sport. He deserves extreme punishment.