As the sentence of convicted Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is decided by a jury, many watching the trial from home have probably come to their own conclusion as to the appropriate sentence.
Tsarnaev and his brother were deemed responsible for the bombing at the Boston Marathon that killed three and injured hundreds.
Ultimately his brother, Tamerlan, will never stand trial because he died during attempts to capture him.
What remains to be seen is whether the jury will sentence Dzhokhar to life in prison, or death.
Either way the decision will put a burden on our society.
If the choice is death, then the defense has recourse to submit appeals that would only drag out the public attention the case and Dzhokhar receive.
Death on the other hand, if appeals find the sentence to be the best course of action, will shorten the financial drain on taxpayers. Proponents of the death penalty also feel it fits the heinous nature of the crime.
Jury members who opt for the death penalty may also recall that the brothers were responsible for the shooting deaths of MIT officers after the bombing occurred.
The question is, should death be repaid with death? Or would mercy provide the proper amount of justice as Dzhokhar spends the rest of his life in jail, on the taxpayer’s dime.
What lends to that conundrum is that killing a man for killing others would put a greater spotlight on a culture already hated by Islamic extremists. But is it warranted? Especially when the extremists are doing so much killing of their own.
These extremists already view our society in a negative light, and killing someone who committed a terrorist act, even if it wasn’t with the known support of extremist groups, would only fuel the fire.
It all comes down to there’s no right or wrong answer, because our country’s laws allow for either punishment to be the epitome of justice.