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July 12, 2015
DA planning to charge Boston Marathon bomber with murder under Massachusetts law
As reported in this new Reuters article, a "Massachusetts district attorney plans to bring state murder charges against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has been sentenced to death in a federal trial for a deadly bomb attack on the 2013 Boston Marathon, her office said on Saturday." Here is why:
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said she would charge Tsarnaev with murdering MIT police officer Sean Collier and for other crimes in the aftermath of the marathon attacks. Ryan said a guilty verdict in Massachusetts could keep Tsarnaev in prison if he successfully appeals his federal convictions.
"When you come into Middlesex County and execute a police officer in the performance of his duties and assault other officers attempting to effect his capture, it is appropriate you should come back to Middlesex County to stand trial for that offense," Ryan said in a statement.
July 12, 2015 at 11:22 AM | Permalink
Comments
Plus generate costs but with your name in the papers. Vile feminist should be fired for wasting tax funds.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jul 12, 2015 11:31:54 AM
Clearly, such a Massachusetts state prosecution would have almost exclusively symbolic value, but it is being pursued to send the messages to prospective criminals that the state will pursue you no matter what if you kill a police officer. Of course, under the Doctrine of Dual Sovereignty, such prosecutions are permissible and would not violate Double Jeopardy. One dual state-Federal prosecution that was pursued years ago when I lived in Atlanta was that of attorney (and a former prosecutor himself!) Fred Tokars, who taught his cocaine dealing clients how to launder money thru strip clubs. Fred arranged the contract killing of his own wife, who had threatened to expose him and his cocaine-dealing clients. The hit was designed to look like his wife had walked into her home in the middle of a burglary, but the 19-year old "hit man" didn't follow the script and ended up shooting the woman (Sarah Tokars) while she was driving her car, with her two young sons in the front seat, after she refused to turn down a wooded dead end street. In the initial Federal indictment, Fred Tokars was convicted of "murder in aidof racketeering" and sentenced to life in prison. Subsequently, the Cobb County D.A. indicted him for capital murder, in an effort to obtain the death penalty. Ultimately, the state court jury convicted Tokars of arranging his wife's murder, but hung 11 to 1 in favor of the death penalty. It appears that the foreman of the jury was not candid in answering voir dire questions about being open to the death penalty, so Mr. Tokars ended up with two life sentences, one Federal and one state.
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Jul 12, 2015 11:45:38 AM
Jim. What was he cost of the second prosecution, indeed of the first? In both the cases discussed?
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jul 12, 2015 1:42:50 PM
One cannot put a price on justice, where a criminally-minded husband-attorney has had his own wife killed at the behest of his Detroit-based drug dealing clients.
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Jul 12, 2015 4:58:23 PM
I think that they should also prosecute him for the felony murder-- of his own brother in the car crash.
Posted by: Liberty1st | Jul 12, 2015 6:00:40 PM
You can put a price on most things especially if it isn't a death sentence but a second life sentence. What does that amount to?
Posted by: Joe | Jul 13, 2015 12:03:57 AM
The only possible non-symbolic reason to do this is if there's a concern of a reversal (and/or dismissal) of the federal charge. Although I suspect the whole point is symbolic (to me, it does raise the federalism concerns once again - although not as clearly as if he were prosecuted for the other victims).
Posted by: Erik M | Jul 13, 2015 8:55:28 AM
