POLL: Should Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Get the Death Penalty?

***Scroll down for the poll.***

By JASON CLAFFEY (Patch Staff)

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Convicted terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev now faces the death penalty for planting bombs that killed three people and wounded 260 more at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013. He also killed a police officer as he tried to flee authorities.

A jury convicted Tsarnaev Wednesday. The same jury next week will determine whether or not Tsarnaev will get the death penalty.

High-ranking law enforcement officials say he deserves the death penalty. Tsarnaev’s lawyers have claimed he was under the influence of his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed during the manhunt. Tsarnaev was 19 years old at the time of the bombings.

A WBUR poll last month found about 60 percent of Bostonians favor life in prison for Tsarnaev over the death penalty.

Key Boston figures and institutions have also weighed in:

For the Death Penalty

• Marc Fucarile, who lost a leg in the blasts: “I prefer people know that if you terrorize our country, you’re going to be put to death.”
• Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis: “This kid picked up a bag, he put it down behind those two children and he blew them up with extreme atrocity ... And as far as I’m concerned that only deserves one punishment.”
• Boston Herald: “May this jury show him as little mercy as he showed the victims whose lives he so callously took.”

Against the Death Penalty

• U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.: “He should die in prison.”
• Boston Globe: “Tsarnaev was 19 at the time of the bombing; he was apparently a heavy drug user; he had no prior criminal record. By themselves, none of these would seem like a particularly good reason to spare him, but taken as a whole, and alongside evidence of his brother’s dominant role, they should plant seeds of doubt.”

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley: “The defendant in this case has been neutralized and will never again have the ability to cause harm ... Society can do better than the death penalty.”

Photo: A courtroom sketch of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. (Credit: WHDH)

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