Feds want death for Dzhokhar
Request comes despite Biden’s personal beliefs
The Biden administration has asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the death penalty against the Boston Marathon bomber, despite Biden’s stated opposition to capital punishment.
The Department of Justice urged the court to reverse a federal appeals court decision that voided the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 27.
“The jury carefully considered each of respondent’s crimes and determined that capital punishment was warranted for the horrors that he personally inflicted — setting down a shrapnel bomb in a crowd and detonating it, killing a child and a promising young student, and consigning several others to a lifetime of unimaginable suffering,” the 48-page DOJ brief says.
It adds the “determination by 12 conscientious jurors deserves respect and reinstatement by this Court.”
Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police and then run over as his brother fled, killed three people and injured 260 others when they set off two bombs in 2013 near the marathon finish line in downtown Boston.
Krystle Campbell, 29, a restaurant manager from Medford, was killed by the first bomb. Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University statistics graduate student, and 8-year old Martin Richard of Dorchester were both killed by the second bomb. During the massive manhunt for the suspects that ensued, the brothers also killed MIT Police Officer Sean Collier.
Boston Police Sgt. Dennis “DJ” Simmonds was one of the first officers on the scene just after midnight during the manhunt as the brothers tossed bombs out of the car they stole. He died a year later from his injuries, becoming the fifth victim to die.
“He will forever be remembered as someone who gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect his city, and for that we are eternally grateful,” then-BPD Commissioner William Gross said at the dedication of a park in the officer’s name in Dorchester.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit last year voided Tsarnaev’s death sentence, ruling that the trial court had failed to assess his brother’s influence and potential jury bias.
Former President Donald Trump in October appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case, likely this fall.
The Department of Justice’s request that the court reinstate the death penalty comes at the behest of Biden, the first U.S. president to publicly oppose the death penalty.
The White House could not immediately be reached for comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
After 15 months as the Grim Reaper, Gov. Charlie Baker has abruptly rebranded himself as Monty Hall.
From Let’s Make a Steal to Let’s Make a Deal.
Forget the Holyoke Soldiers Home, the third highest COVID death rate in the nation, the worst unemployment rate in the U.S. for months on end, the 9,018 dead in nursing homes (miraculously reduced to 5,500 overnight!) — we got ourselves a new lottery here, folks!
C’mon down! Maskachusetts’ 15-day lockdown to flatten the curve is over — 449 or 462 days later, depending on which of his catastrophic orders you count from.
Charlie, how about a second post-panic lottery just for those half-million or so residents who lost their jobs because of your calamitously stupid lockdowns?
I would also suggest a lottery for people who want to ask you a few real questions, unlike the “reporters” from the amen chorus Tuesday who were slobbering over the fact that you were not wearing a mask.
If I won that lottery, I would start by asking Charlie Parker (as Joe Biden calls him) about the State Police.
Governor, you may have heard that after the Dedham
High graduation earlier this month, a 17-year-old was pulled from the deep end of a pool. It was on property owned by a retired State Police detective captain named Jimmy Coughlin, who since 2017 has been collecting a state pension of $131,961 a year.
The teenager died, and misdemeanor charges, including furnishing alcohol to a child, have now been filed, although the names of the defendant(s) have not yet been released.
I am told that Coughlin at one point was on the security staff of the governor, although I’m not sure which one. He unsuccessfully ran for Norfolk County sheriff last year. His brother was a state rep who became a high-paid lobbyist. An inlaw is a high-ranking payroll patriot ($148,000 a year) in the trial court.
In short, Jimmy Coughlin is a hack’s hack.
My question for the governor is, do you know anybody who was at the fatal Coughlin party? Do you employ anyone who was in Dedham that Sunday morning when the youth was pulled from the pool?
And when we finally get the list of the party-goers from the cops, is it going to read like a Who’s Who of the Hackerama, the Friends of Charlie Baker in other words?
Here’s another MSP question for A.J. Baker’s dad: Who’s doing the background checks on your new State Police recruits? I mean, wasn’t one Leigha Genduso embarrassing enough?
For instance, when someone is applying to become a trooper, isn’t law enforcement supposed to vet them?
And what if you discovered that the applicant had split up with his first wife after only 18 months of marriage, and had left the home a month after the birth of his child, and that his ex had insisted that all “drop-offs and pick-ups” of the child be outside the home — do you think that might have raised a red flag, that perhaps the new trooper might soon find himself in a domestic dispute down the road, with his next wife, after he was on the job?
Askin’ for a friend …
If I won the lottery to ask Parker some real questions, I would also ask him, are you concerned about certain “medical emergencies” involving youthful troopers that the brass seem to have no interest in explaining to the general public?
Also, Gov. Bacon (as Sen. Ed Markey calls you), it’s no secret that an unprecedented number of MSP units have been convulsed by rampant corruption during your squalid tenure in the Corner Office.
I’m thinking of, among others, the now-disbanded Troop E, the state police armory and the Traffic Programs Section, not to mention the scandal-scarred SPAM union.
Are you concerned that the feds might be sniffing around other MSP units that have devolved into semi-autonomous, not to mention semi-corrupt, fiefdoms?
How many veteran troopers have recently filed for disability? Do any of them have close relatives who have themselves been out on disability for years, if not decades?
How many dishonorable discharges have been handed out in the last year?
How many troopers have lost their firearms, both in Massachusetts and out of state?
Governor, could you have ever imagined that the advent of GPS would end so many more troopers’ careers than career criminals ever did?
If a trooper left the military suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, wouldn’t it be reckless for the state to hire such a person for a high-stress job like trooper?
I’d love to ask the governor some of these questions, because at the end of the interview, he’d be singing that old Danny O’Keefe hit single from 1972.
Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues.