Azizam
BANNED
- Joined
- May 26, 2013
- Messages
- 3,512
- Reaction score
- -8
- Country
- Location
BOSTON — Despite this city’s immersion in a trial that is replaying the horrific details of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the vast majority of Bostonians say in a new poll that if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the admitted bomber, is found guilty, he should be sent to prison for life and not condemned to death.
Given the choice of sentencing Mr. Tsarnaev to death or to prison for the rest of his life without the possibility of parole, 62 percent of Bostonvoters chose life in prison, while 27 percent said he should be put to death, according to a poll released Monday by WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station.
Previous polls have shown Bostonians opposing the death penalty for Mr. Tsarnaev. A Boston Globe survey conducted in September 2013, five months after the bombings, found that 57 percent favored life in prison while 33 percent wanted him put to death.
But the WBUR poll is the first to be conducted since Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers admitted this month that he had participated in the crimes. And it was conducted in the midst of his trial, which has included survivors recounting the graphic details of their limbs being blown off, and of loved ones being killed.
The poll clearly shows that Boston voters have nonetheless held firm on his potential punishment, underscoring the enduring depth of sentiment here against the death penalty.
Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, which conducted the survey for WBUR, said he initially expected support for the death penalty to intensify, given the grim testimony about the worst attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
But, he said, the poll’s results reflect the region’s fundamental liberalism and its longtime opposition to capital punishment.
“It seems voters stuck to their core values,” Mr. Koczela said.
New England was in the forefront of the movement to abolish capital punishment in the mid-1800s. Massachusetts did not do so until 1984. But the state has not carried out an execution since 1947. And the state legislature has withstood attempts to revive the death penalty, even in the immediate aftermath of the marathon bombings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/u...icmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&_r=0
Given the choice of sentencing Mr. Tsarnaev to death or to prison for the rest of his life without the possibility of parole, 62 percent of Bostonvoters chose life in prison, while 27 percent said he should be put to death, according to a poll released Monday by WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station.
Previous polls have shown Bostonians opposing the death penalty for Mr. Tsarnaev. A Boston Globe survey conducted in September 2013, five months after the bombings, found that 57 percent favored life in prison while 33 percent wanted him put to death.
But the WBUR poll is the first to be conducted since Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers admitted this month that he had participated in the crimes. And it was conducted in the midst of his trial, which has included survivors recounting the graphic details of their limbs being blown off, and of loved ones being killed.
The poll clearly shows that Boston voters have nonetheless held firm on his potential punishment, underscoring the enduring depth of sentiment here against the death penalty.
Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, which conducted the survey for WBUR, said he initially expected support for the death penalty to intensify, given the grim testimony about the worst attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
But, he said, the poll’s results reflect the region’s fundamental liberalism and its longtime opposition to capital punishment.
“It seems voters stuck to their core values,” Mr. Koczela said.
New England was in the forefront of the movement to abolish capital punishment in the mid-1800s. Massachusetts did not do so until 1984. But the state has not carried out an execution since 1947. And the state legislature has withstood attempts to revive the death penalty, even in the immediate aftermath of the marathon bombings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/u...icmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&_r=0
