This is an interesting month from a criminal-justice perspective. Both Batman and the Joker are having their day in court.
“The Joker”, in this case, is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who along with his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, set off the bombs at the Boston Marathon in April 2013. His trial is coming to an end.
“Batman” here is James Eagan Holmes, who gunned down the audience at a midnight showing of a Batman film in Aurora, Colorado, in July 2012. His trial will start on Monday.
These were the two worst terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11. In Boston, three people were killed and 264 injured. In Aurora, 12 were killed and 70 injured.
Tsarnaev, 19 at the time of the Boston bombing, pleaded “not guilty”, meaning “it wasn’t him”. Multiple surveillance cameras refuted that, though, and he’d also written a statement, saying he’d bombed the marathon in order to teach the US the effect that its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had been having on civilians there. His lawyer, Judy Clarke, even said in her opening statement in March, “It was him.” The jury found Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 charges.
Holmes, 24 at the time of the Aurora shooting, has pleaded “not guilty by reason of insanity”, meaning “he is not responsible for his actions and should be sent to a mental hospital”. Under federal law, he will have to prove that he is insane, but there is some chance of that succeeding. Holmes’s trial has been delayed several times due to his lawyers’ claims that they need to understand his mental issues, and that Holmes has tried to commit suicide more than once while in custody. Holmes is facing 166 charges.
To live or die?
For the next four weeks, the jury in Boston will be considering whether Tsarnaev should live or die. US Attorney General Eric Holder’s request for the death penalty contrasts with the defense’s argument that Tamerlan, who was killed during a confrontation with police, was the mastermind and Dzhokhar the follower. The jury’s decision will depend, among other things, upon whether Dzhokhar shows remorse. After two years in solitary confinement, he has shown only disinterest, even as some of the victims were brought before him.
If either of the accused gets the death penalty, he may have to be sent to another state to receive it. Massachusetts does not administer the death penalty. Colorado administers only lethal injections, which has become hard to do, since the European companies that manufacture the ingredients for them have stopped delivering the drugs.
European companies have stopped supplying drugs for the death penalty
To get around the drug shortage, some states are returning to older methods of capital punishment. Tennessee, for example, passed a law last year, bringing back the electric chair. Utah now allows firing squads, a method in which Florida and Missouri are showing interest. Some Oklahomans are campaigning to have their state allow execution by nitrogen in a gas chamber.
But getting someone in front of a firing squad, or sending him to suffocate in Oklahoma, is not as easy as it sounds. The appeals process often takes decades. For that reason, a life sentence, or several, without parole is often the preferred option.
The most dangerous federal prisoners are sent to the “Administrative Maximum Facility” (ADX) in Florence, Colorado, never to be seen again. Inmates there include Terry Nichols, co-conspirator in the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995; Eric Rudolph, who planted a bomb at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta; Theodore Kaczynski, a serial killer known as “the Unabomber”; Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the failed 9/11-style “Project Bojinka”; Zacarias Moussaoui, an Al Qaeda operative; Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber”; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “underwear bomber”. The scale of their crimes fits that of the Boston and Aurora massacres.
Both the Dzhokhar and the Batman killer (if the latter is found guilty) could, therefore, soon have some interesting neighbors.
Update, May 15: The jury in Boston has decided that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should receive the death penalty.
Update, August 7: The jury in Colorado has decided that James Eagan Holmes should receive life imprisonment.
