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Since independent Senator Bernie Sanders announced his presidential candidacy in April, polls in Iowa show support there for him has increased to 15 percent among Democrats, up from five percent in February. This compares to about 60 percent backing for former secretary of state, senator and first lady Hillary Clinton. Sanders is the longest-serving independent member of Congress in U.S. history, yet he is going to run in the Democratic Party for the Democratic nomination. We discuss Sanders’ plans with former presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, author of the new book, "Return to Sender: Unanswered Letters to the President, 2001-2015."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In the last few weeks, a new person has thrown his hat into the ring in the Democratic Party, and that is independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Since Sanders announced his candidacy in April, polls in Iowa show support there for him has increased [to] 15 percent among Democrats, up from 5 percent in February. This compares to about 60 percent backing for former secretary of state, senator and first lady Hillary Clinton. Senator Sanders is the longest-serving independent member of Congress in U.S. history, yet he is going to run in the Democratic Party for the Democratic nomination. He says he’ll run as Democratic Socialist.
Well, Juan González and I recently discussed Sanders’ plans with former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who has new book out called Return to Sender: Unanswered Letters to the President, 2001-2015. We began by asking Ralph Nader, who ran several times as a third-party candidate, for his response to Sanders’ decision to make a bid for the Democratic nomination.
RALPH NADER: Well, that’s always been a dilemma he’s been deliberating for the last year or so. If he runs as an independent, he can go to November. If he runs as a registered Democrat, he’s done in April or May, assuming he doesn’t defeat Hillary Clinton or others, but he gets on the televised primaries. Where as an independent he could be marginalized, as a Democrat he’s going to get on quite a few debates and in the primary. But he will be asked—if not very soon, he will be asked, "Will you endorse the nominee of the Democratic Party if it’s Hillary Clinton?" And if he says no, he may be actually kept off the debates. The debates are controlled by a corporation, known as the Democratic Party. They kept Dennis Kucinich off some of the debates. It’s completely within their power to do that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Did you have any discussions with him about that choice? And did you give him any advice?
RALPH NADER: Bernie Sanders does not answer my calls. Fifteen years, he’s never answered a telephone call, never replied to a letter, never replied to a meeting that I wanted to go down and see him. I even had to write an article on this, called "Bernie, We Thought We Knew Ye!" One of the problems he’s going to face, other than his good graces in Vermont, is that he doesn’t have good political antennae. He doesn’t have political social graces. And he’s going to have to change that. A lot of his friends have told me that that’s a problem. But most progressive senators don’t really respond to any progressive group that tries to push him to do more than they want to do. I wrote nine letters to nine progressive senators, like Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and saying, "Look, you’re all lone rangers doing good things, but you’re going nowhere. So why don’t you get together into a caucus of nine, 10, 12 senators in the Senate and push a unified agenda on poverty, on labor, on the environment, on trade, on military policy? You might really get somewhere. At the least, you’ll raise these issues more prominently." Not a single response. Called up, said, "Would they respond?" Not a single response. I did finally have to go down and meet with the general counsel for Senator Warren. But by and large, that’s the problem with the left. That’s the problem of progressives. They don’t link with one another. You never see Heritage Foundation or Cato or all these right-wing groups tolerate members of Congress treating them that way who are supposed to be on their side.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, Bernie Sanders tweeted on Thursday that he looked forward to debating Clinton on, quote, "the big issues: income inequality, climate change & getting big money out of politics." Hillary Clinton had tweeted, in response to him announcing for presidency, the first formal Democratic candidate against her—she wrote, "I agree with Bernie. Focus must be on helping America’s middle class. GOP would hold them back. I welcome him to the race." Your response?
RALPH NADER: Well, he’s got a very good 12-point program, which I’m sure he’s going to talk about all over the country. And you can see what Hillary’s response and strategy is going to be. She is going to agree with him on a general basis, like, "Yes, we should have better wages for the American people." She’s going to try to neutralize him. She’s going to try to, in effect, appear like she is going along with progressive policies. His counterstrategy has got to be very specific. "OK, Hillary Clinton, do you support a Wall Street transaction tax?" There are sales taxes on necessities of life all over the United States, 6 to 8 percent, but there’s not a penny sales tax if someone today buys a $100 billion worth or $100 million worth of ExxonMobil derivatives. Well, that will really get it specific. So he cannot allow her to generalize agreement with him to try to neutralize him.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph, I wanted to ask you—you mentioned that all of these progressive senators don’t respond to your letters. Obviously, the presidents don’t respond to your letters. But one person did respond to one of your letters: Michelle Obama. Could you talk about that?
RALPH NADER: Yeah, this is a very important letter that I wrote. I wrote it actually three times. You read about President Obama going to Chambers of Commerce, going to business gatherings all over the country. But he’s never addressed the voluntary nonprofit sector, the groups that deal with charity, deal with children’s needs, environment, labor groups, religious groups, groups that are advocacy groups. And when Jimmy Carter was elected president, we gathered a thousand of these leaders, who have millions of members, like the National Council of Churches—they have a lot of members around the country—and labor unions, etc., in a hotel about two blocks from the White House. And it was a very successful meeting with Jimmy Carter, and it raised the profile of these groups.
So I wrote the letters to Barack Obama saying, "Why don’t you do that? It’s just two blocks away, logistically very easy. You walked across Lafayette Park to pay homage to the Chamber of Commerce. Why don’t you do that? It’s not only the right thing to do, but these nonprofit groups have a lot of employees. And if they get more visibility, more charitable contributions, they’re going to hire more people." And I tried to appeal to him on the job basis. Well, he never answered. So I sent it over to Michelle’s office, and back came a letter basically saying, "Thank you for doing that, but he’s just too busy." He’s just too busy to respond to the nonprofit voluntary sector of America that every day keeps his country going.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The former community organizer.
RALPH NADER: He’s just too busy. Pardon?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The former community organizer, now president.
RALPH NADER: Yes. Of all people, he should have recognized this. He’s also an expert in constitutional law, and he has violated the Constitution and federal statutes in terms of his drone warfare and other foreign policies right and left. You know what the lesson, Juan, is, that it really doesn’t matter. If the power structure persists, it doesn’t matter who’s in office. It doesn’t matter what ethnic, racial background. It doesn’t matter how much they know, how much they don’t know. They’re all molded by the corporate power structure that controls Washington from Wall Street, to use a symbolic tour.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph, I wanted to ask you about the issue of empire, which you mention that even progressives like Bernie Sanders doesn’t want to question. We have a president who was elected to office as a candidate of peace, of ending the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. He pulled the ground troops out, but he has expanded air wars in Yemen, in Pakistan, in Libya and in Syria. So, your assessment of this issue of how President Obama has done with the question of empire?
RALPH NADER: Well, he’s expanded it, and he’s basically broken every international law relating to national sovereignties. He’s broken some of the Geneva Conventions, all of which the U.S. is a signatory to, U.N. Charter. No wars are permitted under international law in the U.N. Charter, unless they’re for strictly defensive purposes. And obviously, we attacked Iraq. They never threatened us. And we’re attacking all kinds of other areas around the world.
What are we getting for it? We’re getting the massive proliferation of violent groups, offshoots and sub-offshoots of al-Qaeda. There are so many of these groups in Africa and Asia spreading, Southeast Asia, that the Pentagon is having trouble indexing them. But they have all this—kill list, of course, every Tuesday in the White House. And what people in this country don’t understand is that the drones may take a few dozen lives here and a few dozen lives there, but when you’re living—when millions of people in Asia and Africa are living under drones, they hear that whine 24 hours a day, it’s terror, it’s horror. They don’t know whether their homes are going to be blown up from this lightning bolt from the sky. And then we wonder why people are hating us and want to do us in.
And it’s only a matter of time. As we push these fighters to become more skilled, more bold, greater in numbers, it’s only a matter of time when the suicide belts are coming to this country. And our country is totally unable to withstand preservation of its civil liberties and democracy with these attacks. And the whole process of democratic processes, allocation of public budgets, will be completely turned upside down in this country with a couple violent terrorist attacks.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, can—would you like to read one of your favorite letters that didn’t get a response in your new book, Return to Sender: Unanswered Letters to the President, 2001-2015? And again, if you can talk, in prefacing it, about why you actually think letters are important? What is this tradition of letters you’re talking about? Why is this the form that you feel is important to communicate with the president?
RALPH NADER: Well, because it’s totally under control of the citizenry to write what he or she believes elected officials should listen to. When I was a child, a youngster, I read the Adams-Jefferson letters, and I read the—later, I read the Holmes-Laski letters. And I liked the personal nature of it, the initiatory nature of it, the command of the writer. And I used letters years ago to make a lot of news. The press would look at a letter and say, "Does it say something important? Is it newsworthy? Who does it go to?" And when these letters were publicized in the press, members of Congress couldn’t ignore the issue. They often would have congressional hearings.
So now, what are we left with? A few giant media conglomerates dominating everything, a little Indymedia, Democracy Now!, Pacifica. What are we really left with for people to breathe and to have a voice? And so, that’s why I wanted President Bush and Obama to address large gatherings of citizen groups in Washington, make it easy for them, who represent the felt necessities of our time, whether it’s dealing with poverty, bigotry, whether it’s dealing with education, whether it’s dealing with environment, consumer protection, the integrity of government, integrity of elections. So, in one of the letters—I’ll read just an excerpt.
“[I]n 2009 and again in 2011 I wrote to urge you [President Obama] to address a large gathering, in a convenient Washington venue, for the leaders of nonprofit civic organizations with tens of millions of members throughout the United States. Not receiving a reply, I sent my request to ... First Lady, Michelle Obama, whose assistant replied saying you were too busy.
"You were, however, not too busy to address many business groups and also to walk over to the oppositional U.S. Chamber of Commerce [across from the White House]. Well, it is the second term and such a civic gathering could be scheduled at your convenience."
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ralph Nader, reading from a letter he wrote to President Obama. It’s one of the many letters he features in his new book called Return to Sender: Unanswered Letters to the President, 2001-2015. You can watch part one of the interview and the rest of his reading at democracynow.org.
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A federal jury has sentenced 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed three and injured more than 260. The sentence was issued in Massachusetts, a state which has banned the death penalty since 1987 and has not carried out an execution since 1947. Polls show 85 percent of Bostonians oppose the death penalty for Tsarnaev, as well as 80 percent of Massachusetts residents. The jury in the case was "death-qualified," meaning each member had to be open to considering the death penalty, and anyone who opposed it could not serve. Tsarnaev’s lawyers are now expected to appeal. The process could take more than a decade to finish. Since the federal death penalty was reinstated, just three federal prisoners have been executed, none since 2003. We host a roundtable with three guests: James Rooney, president of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty; Eric Freedman, professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School, who has worked on many death penalty cases; and Denny LeBoeuf, director of the ACLU’s John Adams Project, who has 26 years of experience as a capital defense attorney.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Boston, where on Friday a federal [jury] sentenced 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed three and injured more than 260. The sentence was issued in Massachusetts, a state which has banned the death penalty since 1987 and has not carried out an execution since 1947. Polls show 85 percent of Bostonians oppose the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as well as 80 percent of Massachusetts residents. But the death penalty was allowed because it was a federal trial. In a statement, the ACLU of Massachusetts said, quote, "Today’s verdict does not reflect the values of the majority of people in our Commonwealth. ... [It] is an outlier, and does not change the fact that Americans increasingly reject capital punishment," unquote.
During the sentencing phase of the trial, Tsarnaev’s lawyers focused on presenting witnesses who could convince jurors he should be sentenced to life without parole instead of death. They argued Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a, quote, "good kid" who fell under the influence of his radical older brother, Tamerlan, and that he is now remorseful. One of the witnesses called was Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun whose story was told in the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking. She met with Tsarnaev five times, said he told her of the bombing victims: quote, "No one deserves to suffer like they did," unquote.
Ultimately, prosecutors prevailed in convincing jurors Tsarnaev should be put to death. After the jury deliberated for more than 15 hours and announced its verdict Friday, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz addressed the media.
CARMEN ORTIZ: Our goal in trying this case was to ensure that the jury had all of the information that they needed to reach a fair and just verdict. We believe we accomplished that goal and that the trial of this case has shown the world what a fair and impartial jury trial is like. Even in the wake of horror and tragedy, we are not intimidated by acts of terror or radical ideals. On the contrary, the trial of this case has showcased an important American ideal, that even the worst of the worst deserve a fair trial and due process of law. Today, the jury has spoken, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will pay with his life for his crimes. Make no mistake: The defendant claimed to be acting on behalf of all Muslims; this was not a religious crime, and it certainly does not reflect true Muslims beliefs. It was a political crime designed to intimidate and to coerce the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: At least one of the federal jurors was reportedly in tears when the verdict was read. The jury was "death-qualified," meaning each member had to be open to considering the death penalty; anyone who opposed it could not serve. Tsarnaev’s lawyers are now expected to appeal. The process could take more than a decade to finish. Since the federal death penalty was reinstated, just three federal prisoners have been executed, none since 2003.
[Tsarnaev’s defense attorney, Judy Clarke, has previously negotiated plea agreements that spared the life of her high-profile clients facing the death penalty in federal cases, including Jared Loughner, who killed six people when he tried to assassinate Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords; Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber; Eric Rudolph, charged in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing; and 9/11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui.]
For more, we’re joined by three guests. In Boston, James Rooney is with us, president of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. In March, he helped organize a symposium called "The Tsarnaev Trial: The Federal Death Penalty in Abolitionist Massachusetts." Here in New York, Eric Freedman is with us, professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School. He has worked on many death penalty cases. And in New Orleans, Denny LeBoeuf is with us, director of the ACLU’s John Adams Project, former director of the Capital Punishment Project. She has 26 years’ experience as a capital defense attorney.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! I wanted to begin in Massachusetts, where the Boston Marathon was. James Rooney, you’re with Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty, but can you explain—I think there’s a lot of confusion around the country right now—why if in Massachusetts, where there is no death penalty, the death penalty was considered, and the response this weekend in Boston, and Massachusetts overall, to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev getting the death penalty?
JAMES ROONEY: Well, as you explained earlier, Amy, the—this is a federal case, and the federal government, because it’s its own sovereign, gets to have its rules applied in any state, even states that don’t have the death penalty, so that here, with a death-qualified jury, as you mentioned, you had 12 people from the community who said they were willing to impose the death penalty if the prosecution showed it.
In terms of the reaction here, I think it’s somewhat of a surprise, given the poll numbers that you mentioned showing that so many people in this state oppose the death penalty, not simply generally, but in this case. So, it doesn’t reflect community sentiment here. And it also—the jury appears to have acted without knowing that the family of the young boy, eight-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed in the bombing and whom—seems to have been the focus of a number of people I talked to who thought that if there was a reason to sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death, it was because of the killing of a young child. The Richard family, after the guilt version—portion of the case had ended, wrote a letter, which was published in The Boston Globe on the front page, saying that they preferred a life sentence in this case. The prosecution in this case emphasized its view that the victims of this crime deserved to have Dzhokhar Tsarnaev put to death, including the—particularly for the killing of this young child. And so the jury acted with that in mind, but without knowing that the Richard family opposed a capital sentence.
AMY GOODMAN: So, in fact, Denny LeBoeuf, the pool that was chosen, of jurors, can you explain how that took place? Because you’re talking about choosing from a true minority of people in Massachusetts, if 85 percent of Bostonians are against giving the death penalty. How many jurors came out, and what was the pool that was chosen from?
DENNY LEBOEUF: It’s part of the unfairness of this system and the sort of convoluted position that the prosecutors have to put this jury in and how this process occurs. You have to asked the jury—it’s a process called death qualification. You have to ask the jury, "Can you consider a death sentence?" And they’re told, "Don’t tell us how you’re going to vote, but tell us that you can seriously make a death penalty a possibility if at the end of this process you’ve convicted him of a death-eligible offense." And having picked some death-qualified juries in a very Catholic city, New Orleans, you watch as you lose a lot of Catholics, most of your African-American and other people of color—you lose all the people who, even for non-religious reasons, don’t have a strong sense that the authorities, that the government, is always right and always tells the truth and always gives you the straight angle on what’s going on and what the facts are. And you’re instead picking a jury from a very small, unrepresentative, very conservative, conviction-prone pool. And it’s the central unfairness of this process, that couldn’t be more dramatic in this case.
AMY GOODMAN: Is this grounds for appeal?
DENNY LEBOEUF: No. I mean, it’s certainly—I answered too fast. It’s not grounds under current Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. It should be. It’s a basic unfairness. And I think, as the numbers get stronger, as the United States moves closer and closer to abolition of the death penalty, which we will get, there may be revisiting of some of the decisions. We’ve certainly seen that in the process of fighting this penalty for many, many years. The court has looked at a lot of issues and come away with a need.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion. We’re speaking with Denny LeBoeuf in New Orleans. She is with the ACLU. In Boston, Massachusetts, James Rooney is with us, with Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. And we’ll be speaking with Eric Freedman, professor at Hofstra Law School, about the conviction and sentencing to death of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 21-year-old convicted in the deaths of three people and the injury of over 260 in the 2013 Boston Marathon. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We are hosting a roundtable discussion on the federal jury’s decision in Boston to sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection. In Boston, James Rooney is with us, president of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty. In March, he helped organize a symposium on "The Tsarnaev Trial: The Federal Death Penalty in Abolitionist Massachusetts." Here in New York, Eric Freedman is with us, professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School. He has worked on many death penalty cases. And in New Orleans, Denny LeBoeuf, who is director of the ACLU’s John Adams Project, former director of the Capital Punishment Project. We welcome you all to Democracy Now!
Some of the survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing expressed relief at the verdict. This is Karen Brassard.
KAREN BRASSARD: If feels like we can take a breath and kind of actually breathe again. You know, without even realizing it, you’re holding your breath. And once the verdict came in, it was like, OK, now we can start from here and go forward and really feel like it’s behind us.
REPORTER: Are you happy with the verdict?
KAREN BRASSARD: "Happy" is not the word I would use. There is nothing happy about having to take somebody’s life. I’m satisfied. I’m grateful that they—that they came to that conclusion, because, for me, I think it was the just conclusion. But there’s nothing happy about any single bit of this situation.
AMY GOODMAN: The youngest victim of the Boston Marathon bombings was eight-year-old Martin Richard. His parents wrote a front-page opinion column for The Boston Globe last month in which they urged the federal government to drop its pursuit of the death penalty for Tsarnaev on the grounds that the appeals process would prolong their mourning. Bill and Denise Richard wrote, quote, "We hope our two remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring." They conclude by saying, "We believe that now is the time to turn the page, end the anguish, and look toward a better future—for us, for Boston, and for the country." Eric Freedman, you’re a constitutional lawyer of Hofstra Law School. Can you talk about the instructions to the jury?
ERIC FREEDMAN: Yes. That’s not a technical problem. It builds on what Denny LeBoeuf was saying about the very unrepresentative nature of the jury in this case. In light of that, it’s incredibly important for the jury to know that a single holdout juror can block the imposition of a death sentence and make it be that there will be life without any further proceedings on penalty. The judge was asked to instruct the jury specifically that, so that they would know the rules that apply, and refused. And—
AMY GOODMAN: Explain—say it again.
ERIC FREEDMAN: The rule is different at guilt and at penalty. At guilt, if there’s a hung jury, you can, if the prosecutor wants to, retry the defendant on guilt and go through the whole thing all over again. And Etan Patz in New York has been a recent visible example. Penalty is not like that in a death case. If a single juror insists on life, and therefore the jury cannot unanimously come to death, then it’s life—period, done, end of story. And that gives a huge incentive to a juror who’s being overwhelmed by her fellows to hang tight, as opposed to thinking, "This is useless, because, after all, it’s only going to be retried again, and they’ll probably sentence him to death again. Who needs it?" If the juror knows, "I can stand firm, and there will be life," the juror has a lot of incentive to do that. And yet, although that is the rule, the judge refused to tell the jury that it was the rule, which takes an unrepresentative jury and has it make its decision in the dark.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain exactly what the judge said.
ERIC FREEDMAN: He just didn’t tell them what would happen if they failed to agree. He said, "You need to agree," period, and left them to speculate that, "Oh, well, if we don’t agree, eventually they’ll just have to do this again." He just refused to give them the correct and true answer as to what would happen if they didn’t agree, leaving them to speculate.
AMY GOODMAN: Denny LeBoeuf, can you talk more about the significance of this, instructing the jury what happens if they vote for the death penalty, what happens if they vote for life in prison, and what it means if there is a holdout?
DENNY LEBOEUF: [inaudible] typically tell the jury, look, the United States Supreme Court has said that the decision and the penalty of a capital case is a reasoned, moral judgment. It calls on an individual juror to examine the whole life—short though it’s been—of the offender, as well as the circumstances of the crime, and to make a moral judgment based on their own morality, on their own perception of what is the appropriate punishment. Is this person, as young as he is, the worst of the worst? And what the instruction that Professor Freedman is talking about tells the jury is just simply the state of affairs. That is that if one juror, for reasons that are good to her, good, important to her, meaningful to her, says, "No, life in prison without probation, without parole, without release," that is the appropriate punishment, and if I simply tell, respectfully, my other jurors, "Fellow jurors, I disagree," that will be the sentence. And that is a matter of law, and jury instructions are supposed to tell the jury here’s the law.
AMY GOODMAN: Was that raised with the judge? And explain how much of this trial was public and how much of it was sidebar. How much do you know what happened?
DENNY LEBOEUF: I really can’t comment on that. I don’t [inaudible]—
AMY GOODMAN: Eric Freedman, can you comment on that?
ERIC FREEDMAN: Yes. This particular issue was so important that defense lawyer David Bruck went out of his way in open court to repeat to the judge this instruction—said, "Your Honor, we reiterate our demand for this instruction," and he read it, in a vain effort to catch the attention of the mainstream press, which failed to pick up on this point. And the judge said, "I’ve already ruled on that, in chambers." We had long arguments about that, as we now know, away from the press and out of the public eye, in which he refused to give the instruction. And—but we do know, from the transcript, that—and from what was said in court—that the defense explicitly asked for this, and it was explicitly refused by the judge, on the basis of considerations which he didn’t tell us. He just said, "What I told you in chambers."
AMY GOODMAN: Is this grounds for appeal?
ERIC FREEDMAN: Oh, there’s no question that the failure to give that instruction, in a situation where it has been given 71 times in federal death penalty cases, including the only two others ever tried in Massachusetts, will certainly be made prominent in the appeal.
AMY GOODMAN: And that appeal would be of the sentence, not of the verdict?
ERIC FREEDMAN: Well, that particular aspect of the appeal will go to the sentence.
AMY GOODMAN: The age of Dhzokhar Tsarnaev, 21 years old now, if you, Denny LeBoeuf, can talk about the significance of his age when he committed this act?
DENNY LEBOEUF: Yeah, he was 19 years old. He was—he was a kid. It was a terrible act. But the United States Supreme Court has recognized, recently, when we belatedly joined the world in saying you can’t execute or death sentence people under the age of 18—they recognized that we’ve advanced in the neuroscience of understanding what every parent who’s raised a teenager knows, that at some point you look at the best kids in the world and say, "What were you thinking?" We now know that the answer to that is "What was he thinking with?" And what he was thinking with was a 19-year-old brain. It is an undeveloped brain. It is not fully—we are not fully developed at that age. And you look at these actions, and you look at the horror of them and the terrible consequences of his act, but that’s precisely one of the problems that kids have, is they can’t gauge consequences of their act. They’re not equipped to do that yet.
The other point about his youth is that it’s very hard for those of us who have lived some decades on this planet to ever say that somebody as young as this has no redemptive possibilities, that there is no way that this person could never redeem himself and have a life that’s worth living, even though that life will always be behind bars. And the Supreme Court recognized that in fairly recent decisions. The universal understanding of the neuroscience is that this kid’s brain—I always look at it this way: If you compare a kid at 19 with me, he’s got better eyes, better reflexes, better hearing, better—you know, everything is better about his physical being, but he can’t rent a car for another six years, and I can rent one anywhere I want to, because my judgment is better.
AMY GOODMAN: The issue of the SAMs, if you could explain what SAMs are—special administrative measures—and how we come to know who Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is? I mean, there were a number of people who spoke in the sentencing phase—his teachers, people talking about his life. But for most people in this country, I think there’s very little understanding of what was allowed to be said in court. The major issue in the sentencing part of this trial was whether he was remorseful. We only know this from one person, from Sister Helen Prejean, who said that Tsarnaev—she had met with Tsarnaev five times. She said they spoke about his crimes, as well as his victims, and that he said, quote, "No one deserves to suffer like they did." She said Tsarnaev lowered his eyes, his voice sounded pained. She said she could see the emotion in his face, and says she came away believing that he’s, quote, "genuinely sorry for what he did." Talk about the significance of what was allowed to be said in open court.
DENNY LEBOEUF: Well, I think my friend Eric may be better equipped to talk about the legal effect of the SAMs on this trial, but I do say that, to some extent, the characterization of him as a terrorist and that extra designation is a—it’s a bit of a red herring. It is not—we’re very familiar, those of us who have been looking at capital cases for many years, with seeing our clients, the defendants, portrayed as some sort of monster, because you can kill monsters, you can kill the non-human. And terrorism is another—another description to throw at somebody you want to say is a monster. He’s an extra-bad person, an extra-terrible murderer, the worst of the worst, because he’s a terrorist. As far as the legal effects of the SAMs on this case, Professor Freedman may know more than I do.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Freedman?
ERIC FREEDMAN: It is more psychological than legal. The special administrative measures, the SAMs, was something that was invented out of whole cloth by the U.S. government in the few days after 9/11, when they suddenly decided that if you are suspected of a terrorist offense, then attorney-client privilege is not for you. And as you know, subsequently, we decided, you know, self-incrimination rights are not for you, and many other things, if you pose a threat to the United States. Good old due process, which got us through the Revolutionary War, isn’t going to make it in the new age. And that thereby insidiously expanded to anything that could be plausibly called terrorism, which is just, as Denny LeBoeuf said, another epithet to hurl at people so that the kabuki drama sort of reinforces itself. You produce all these guards with machine guns, and you make the world think the guy is very dangerous.
In terms of what could be said at the—this, in the penalty phase of this trial, that is something which is now buried deep in the record on appeal. We talk about, well, there will be an appeal about the failure to change venue, there will be an appeal about the failure to give this instruction. All the other stuff that is buried in this record, that’s going to result in a brief of over a thousand pages on appeal, we don’t know about yet. Many of the things that the defense may have been complaining about that they weren’t given access to put together that mitigation case, because they couldn’t get a visa to Russia, hypothetically, or because other efforts were made to block evidence, almost by definition, we don’t know about yet. We don’t know because, in many cases, the lawyers haven’t been allowed to say. And second of all, it just hasn’t come out yet. And so—
AMY GOODMAN: But—
ERIC FREEDMAN: And so, it’s—
AMY GOODMAN: Explain the logic. I mean, you—the way it is argued, these special administrative measures, is you don’t want a, quote, "terrorist" sending a message out to his followers. But when you’re talking about the issue of whether he was remorseful or not, if he expressed great remorse in the defense team, were they allowed to convey this? And who was setting the rules? The defense team is versus the prosecution. Is the prosecution the ones that are trying to show that he has no remorse, the very ones who are setting the SAMs, saying that he cannot say this?
ERIC FREEDMAN: I believe, from what’s now public, that the attempt to keep Sister Helen off the stand was maybe on a completely different set of grounds. We know that there was passionate, closed-door argument as to whether she could testify or not, but I don’t think it had anything to do with national security. I think the—I mean, I don’t know. But it would appear that the judge decided, as a matter of death penalty law, that it’s much more risky to keep the defense from putting on some testimony that they want to put on about remorse than to give in to whatever the prosecutor was arguing. Whether the prosecutor was arguing national security or whether the prosecutor was arguing irrelevance or hearsay, we don’t know. But on that small point—
AMY GOODMAN: Which wasn’t a small point. This presumably was the point the jury was weighing, is how much remorse he had.
ERIC FREEDMAN: Yes, OK. On that, the defense won that point, right? The defense—I mean, Sister Helen got to testify.
AMY GOODMAN: So—and the prosecution are the ones who were setting the rules on what can be said about this—
ERIC FREEDMAN: No, that’s really not quite right. The SAMs relate to access to the prison and to the prisoner and—but not to presentation in court—
AMY GOODMAN: And what can be conveyed.
ERIC FREEDMAN: No, in court, that’s the judge’s ruling. And you saw the judge had the final word on that.
AMY GOODMAN: Venue, finally—let’s put this question to Denny LeBoeuf—the issue of Boston, the scene of the crime, being the venue for this trial, the attempt to move it out of Boston. Other venues were put forward. What about this? And is this grounds for appeal?
DENNY LEBOEUF: It certainly is grounds for appeal. The defense took a fairly extraordinary action of trying to use the mandamus process to get this in front of the appellate court ahead of time. It was a—observed from the outside, it just was an inexplicable ruling. When you combine that with sort of saying, if the community that suffered the greatest harm is supposed to be the community, for some reason, that they are going to suffer the fear of prejudice to the defense and to a fair trial by having it in this community, where no one was unaffected by the hunt for the bombers and for the ensuing lockdown of the whole city or by the horror of the consequences of the bombing—if you’re going to do that, and then you turn and take a totally unrepresentative proportion of that community to weigh in on the conviction and the penalty, it stands fairness on its head. So, the people who have religious opposition to the death penalty—two million Bostonians identify themselves as Roman Catholics—then you should say to those people, "You get to say—we’re going to have this trial here. You get to say whether or not you think he was guilty." And if the prosecution can’t find 12 jurors who can examine guilt and innocence, but cannot consider the death penalty, then I guess they can’t get a death penalty in this community, because this community doesn’t have a death penalty. Massachusetts hasn’t had one. So, I think that saying we’re going to do it in Massachusetts, we’re going to do it in Boston, but we’re going to pick a jury from Boston that doesn’t represent this city in any—in a very important way, is unfair, clearly unfair.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there. We’re going to continue, as information comes out from what the jurors thought and what happens next, of course, continue to follow this case. Denny LeBoeuf, I want to thank you for being with us, of the ACLU John Adams Project. Thank you very much to James Rooney of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty and Eric Freedman, professor at Hofstra Law School here in New York.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, Ralph Nader. Stay with us.
Headlines:
Hundreds Killed as ISIL Seizes Ramadi; Iraq Orders Deployment of Shiite Militias
The self-proclaimed Islamic State has captured Ramadi, capital of Iraq’s Anbar province. The last of the Iraqi forces fled on Sunday as ISIL forces swept the city, killing government loyalists and seizing military equipment, including U.S.-supplied weapons. Local officials say around 500 civilians and soldiers were killed in just two days of fighting and that thousands have fled their homes. The fall of Ramadi comes despite weeks of U.S. airstrikes and is considered one of ISIL’s biggest victories since it seized territory across Iraq last June. Speaking today in South Korea, Secretary of State John Kerry said he expects ISIL’s gains to be reversed.
Secretary of State John Kerry: "In addition, their communications have been reduced. Their funding and financial mechanisms have been reduced. And their movements, by and large, in most certainly where there are air patrols and other capacities, have been reduced. But that’s not everywhere. And so, it is possible to have the kind of attack we’ve seen in Ramadi. But I am absolutely confident in the days ahead that will be reversed."
The Iraqi government has asked Shiite militias to deploy to Anbar to help recapture it as they did in Tikrit earlier this year.
U.S. Forces Kill ISIL Defense Minister, Militants in Syria Raid
A U.S. military raid inside Syria has reportedly killed scores of Islamic State militants, including a mid-level leader. The Pentagon says the operation killed Islamic State defense minister Abu Sayyaf and about a dozen others. Sayyaf’s wife was captured, and a woman said to be the couple’s Yazidi slave was also freed. The U.S. says it did not coordinate with the Syrian regime.
Saudi-Led Bombing of Yemen Resumes After Truce Ends
The Saudi-led coalition has resumed bombing Yemen after a five-day ceasefire expired. Strikes were reported in the province of Aden as Houthi fighters battled rival forces across the south. The five-day pause allowed for the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid, but several cities failed to receive any assistance. The U.N. envoy to Yemen urged all parties to renew the truce.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed: "We have seen how this humanitarian truce has given us a glimpse of hope by allowing aid to reach the Yemeni people at a time when they most desperately need it. In light of this spirit, I urge all parties to renew their commitment to this humanitarian truce for at least five more days."
Saudi Arabia is hosting a gathering of Yemeni political leaders, including the internationally recognized President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, but the Houthis have refused to attend as the airstrikes continue.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Sentenced to Death for Boston Marathon Bombing
A federal jury has sentenced 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed three and injured more than 260. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz welcomed the decision.
U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz: "Today, the jury has spoken, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will pay with his life for his crimes. Make no mistake: The defendant claimed to be acting on behalf of all Muslims; this was not a religious crime, and it certainly does not reflect true Muslims beliefs. It was a political crime designed to intimidate and to coerce the United States."
The sentence was issued in Massachusetts, a state which has banned the death penalty since 1987 and has not carried out an execution since 1947. After Tsarnaev was found guilty in April, a Boston Globe poll found less than 20 percent of Massachusetts residents believed Tsarnaev should be killed. But the death penalty was allowed because it was a federal trial.
Amtrak Installs Speed Controls at Derailment Site; Train Service Resumes
Amtrak says it has installed automatic train control technology that slows trains on the stretch of track where last week’s deadly derailment occurred. Federal officials have ordered the installment of a more advanced system, positive train control, by year’s end. Full service is resuming on the Northeast Corridor train line today after repairs were made. Federal officials continue to investigate the derailment’s cause amid conflicting accounts surrounding the engineer. After interviewing crew members, Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board said one may have heard the engineer reporting the train was hit by an object.
Robert Sumwalt: "She recalled that the SEPTA engineer had reported to the train dispatcher that he had either been hit by a rock or shot at, and that the SEPTA engineer said that he had a broken windshield and he placed his train into emergency stop. She also believed that she heard the engineer say something about — she also believed that she heard her engineer say something about his train being struck by something."
Another crew member says he doesn’t recall hearing of anything hitting the train. The engineer himself has spoken to investigators but says he doesn’t recall the moments before the crash.
Biker Gang Fight, Shootout Leaves 9 Dead in Texas
Nine people have died in a gun battle involving rival biker gangs and police in Waco, Texas. Authorities say a dispute over a shopping mall parking space descended into a fight between three different gangs. Police had been stationed at the mall in anticipation of criminal activity and moved in when gunfire began. The resulting shootout left behind a gruesome scene of blood and bodies. Waco Sgt. Patrick Swanton said it was the worst crime scene he has ever seen.
Sgt. Patrick Swanton: "I can confirm that we still have eight dead here on scene. One additional has died at the hospital, for a total of nine. Those numbers may rise. I told you earlier we had at least 16 that were transported to the hospital. Many of those had gunshot wounds and stab wounds. I will tell you that in 34 years of law enforcement this is the worst crime scene, the most violent crime scene, that I have ever been involved in. There are dead people still there. There is blood everywhere."
All of the dead were bikers, and no officers were hurt.
Obama to Limit Military Equipment for Police Depts.
President Obama is curbing the flow of military-style gear to local police departments. Following criticism of the militarized response to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, Obama is banning the federal government from providing weaponized aircraft or vehicles, grenade launchers, camouflage uniforms and tank-like armored vehicles which run on tracked wheels. Obama is also expected to restrict other military-style gear, including Humvees, drones, explosives and battering rams. He is expected to announce the measures today during a speech in Camden, New Jersey.
Colombia Halts U.S.-Backed Coca Fumigation, Citing Cancer Fears
Colombia is halting the long-running U.S.-backed toxic fumigation of its coca plant fields. Colombia has sprayed vast swaths of land with chemicals in a bid to curb the production of cocaine. But the government cited concerns the herbicide, glyphosate, causes cancer.
Egyptian Court Sentences Ex-President Morsi to Death
An Egyptian court has sentenced ousted President Mohamed Morsi and more than 100 others to death. The ruling comes in the case of a 2011 prison break, one year before Morsi became Egypt’s first democratically elected leader. He has been imprisoned since being overthrown in a 2013 coup. The death term must now be confirmed by Egypt’s grand religious authority and could still be appealed to Egypt’s highest court. In a statement, Amnesty International called the trials "nothing but a charade based on null and void procedures."
D.C. Park Police Agree to Reform Mass Arrests
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has announced an unprecedented settlement with the Obama administration to change the way the U.S. Park Police conduct mass arrests. The deal follows 12 years of litigation over the arrests of nearly 400 demonstrators, tourists, bystanders and legal observers during protests against the World Bank on September 27, 2002, when the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, working with Park Police, trapped and arrested everyone inside Pershing Park. The new policies agreed to by Park Police under the $2.2. million settlement prohibit police lines to encircle protesters, require specific probable cause for each arrest, and mandate fair notice and multiple warnings before arrests are made. In a statement, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund said, "If these reforms can be enacted here in the Nation’s Capital, they can and should be implemented in cities across the nation."
Seattle Activists Take to Sea to Protest Shell Drilling in Arctic
About 500 environmentalists and indigenous leaders took to kayaks and small boats in Seattle on Saturday to protest Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the remote waters of the Arctic. The so-called "Paddle in Seattle" came as Shell’s massive Arctic-bound Polar Pioneer drill rig arrived at the Port of Seattle, despite local opposition. The protests are expected to culminate today with nonviolent civil disobedience to disrupt Shell’s operations. The Obama administration recently defied environmentalists by granting Shell conditional approval to drill in the Arctic this summer.
Anti-Nuke Activists Freed from Prison After Convictions Vacated
Three peace activists who infiltrated a nuclear weapons site have been freed from prison after their convictions were overturned. In 2012, the self-described "Transform Now Ploughshares" broke into the Y-12 nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They cut holes in the fence to paint peace slogans and threw blood on the wall, revealing major security flaws at the facility, which processes uranium for hydrogen bombs. The three were convicted of damaging a national defense site. Two of the activists, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, received five-year sentences, while 84-year-old nun Megan Rice received nearly three years. After two years behind bars, a federal appeals court recently vacated their convictions, saying the prosecution failed to prove the three intended to "injure the national defense." All three were released this weekend until their resentencing on a remaining charge of damaging government property. Defense lawyers say they have likely already served more time than they are set to receive.
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