Boston Bombings

“Will Accused Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Get the Death Penalty?”

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

“Will Accused Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Get the Death Penalty?”

This was the question being investigated on the Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast.  Here is a description of the show: 

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving brother of the accused for the Boston marathon bombings, has become a face of the media lately. His prosecution and potential sentence raises many questions for both the public and the legal world. Attorneys and co-hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi joinAttorney Jack Cunha and Professor Douglas Berman to discuss the prosecution and trial of the suspect.

  • Jack Cunha, of Cunha & Holcomb, is a practicing criminal attorney based in Boston, Massachusetts. A former instructor at Suffolk and Harvard Law Schools, Cunha lectures nationally for various associations and schools such as The National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, Harvard Law, and CLE Programs mainly on criminal defense.
  • Douglas Berman, Professor of Law at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, has taught a myriad of courses at Ohio State including criminal law, criminal punishment and sentencing, and the death penalty. He is co-author of a casebook, Sentencing Law and Policy: Cases, Statutes, and Guidelines. He also writes a popular blog titled Sentencing Law and Policy.

Tune in to hear what these experienced professionals have to say as they answer questions such as: Although Massachusetts outlawed the death penalty in 1984, will prosecutors use federal law to seek the death penalty for Tsarnaev? Will the fact that the suspect is only 19 call for mitigation? and more.

 

Is Islam More Violent Than Other Major Religions?

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Is Islam More Violent Than Other Major Religions?

This was the topic being debated in the wake of the Boston Bombings on Real Time with Bill Maher. On its face, this proposition appears patently offensive.  However, Maher debated

Brian Levy, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino, about the Boston Marathon Bombers’ Muslim faith playing a role in their terrorism

“It’s not like people who are Muslim who do wacky things have a monopoly on it,” Levy claimed. “We have hypocrites across faiths, Jewish, Christian who say they’re out for God and end up doing not so nice things.”

Maher, true to form, called his guest out and said his premise was “liberal bullshit.”

Maher concedes the obvious, that not all Muslims are terrorists.  Instead, Maher makes a slightly more subtle argument, that Islamic extremists are more violent than Christian and Jewish extremists.  

Is this empirically true? If so, does it mean anything? Does admitting this “truth” cause more harm than good? Undoubtedly, Levy’s point is also true, that such a stereotype harms the vast majority of peaceful Muslims.   

Boston Bombings Coverage: The Ugly

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Boston Bombings Coverage: The Ugly

Yesterday’s post featured Part II of our three-part series “Boston Bombings Coverage: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.”  Part II, “The Bad,” was Jon Stewart’s satire of CNN’s embarrassing Boston bombings blunder.   Part I, “The Good,” featured  Fareed Zakaria’s shrewd take on the Boston bombings.  Today’s post discusses another Jon Stewart clip and “The Ugly”–Fox News contributors falling over themselves to shred the Constitution in wake of the Boston Bombings.