Emotion packed courtroom in Boston
The historic, 10-week trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a gut-wrenching emotional journey. I say this from having covered it from start to finish for USA TODAY.
From my seat in the fourth row, I was among many holding back tears when we heard recorded voices of screaming children and saw photos of severed bodies on blood-stained sidewalks. How could anyone not be moved by the accounts of men and women who lost legs, or a tearful Russian aunt mourning her nephew-turned-terrorist?
Yet, emotions somehow weren’t supposed to affect the verdict.
Judge George O’Toole was clear with jurors. Their sentence “must not be an emotional response,” he said. It should instead reflect only “an individual’s careful, considered and reasoned judgment.” Presumably only then, with feelings of all types minimized and the rational mind set free, could justice be served.
The admonition sounded high-minded, but attorneys took it with a grain of salt. The penal- ty phase amounted to three weeks of vying for jurors’ sympathies — first for the victims, then for the defendant. Compelling videos, childhood photos and personal stories were carefully choreographed to tug at the heartstrings.
Still, jurors tried to maintain at least the appearance of the court’s stoic ideal. With occasional exception, they sat stonefaced for hours while fellow citizens detailed the horrors they’d endured. Behind the façade, they had to be torn up inside, just as the rest of us were behind our own stiff-lipped veneers. In capping a flood of emotions, they were trying to do their duty, as it was explained to them.
But I couldn’t help but wonder. Are people really at their decision-making best when they minimize their emotional response to human suffering? Or are they unnaturally shutting down a crucial part of what it means to be human, compas- sionate and wise?
In a colossal irony, setting emotions aside was exactly what made Dzhokhar Tsarnaev worthy of the death penalty, according to prosecutors in the case. They said he should die for his crimes because he was “callous,” “depraved” and “inhumane.” In short, he lacked compassion for people and situations that called for it.
Indeed, Tsarnaev’s tragic move was to let an extremist belief system eclipse any com- passionate inclinations he might have had. Inside the boat where he hid before his capture, he wrote, “I don’t like killing innocent people.” But in this situation, he continued, “it is allowed.” He had learned to subjugate his emotions, even his conscience, to a larger cause.
His brother Tamerlan’s computer contained similar exhortations to let no personal feelings or misgivings stand in the way of duty to avenge Muslim suffering by waging jihad. One read, “March forth, whether this is easy for you or burdensome, and fight on your path to Allah.” The mental training of the mujahedin, we learned, is to squelch one’s inklings of sympathy for non-believers and serve the militant cause.
Of course, jurors weren’t the only ones trying to suppress personal emotions so as not to interfere with the work at hand. All of us in the courtroom — reporters, court staffers, U.S. marshals — were expected to do the same. And to a degree, we did.
Yet the question remains whether the causes of truth and justice are best served when emotions of all types are neutralized, buried or stifled. In this case, it seemed impossible for anyone to do that.