CNN news 2015-03-08 加文本

cnn news 2015-03-08

CARL AZUZ, HOST: One day from Friday. You`ve landed on cnn STUDENT NEWS.

I`m Carl Azuz.

It`s good to see you this March 5th.

The trial has begun for a man accused in the 2013 terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon. It happened near the finish line on April 15th.

Three people were killed when two bombs went off and more than 260 were injured, many losing limbs.

An MIT police officer was also killed three days after the bombings, as two suspects, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, allegedly ran

from police.

Tamerlan was then killed in a gun battle and Dzhokhar was arrested.

His defense attorney says he did it, everything he`s accused of. The prosecution and defense agree on the basic facts about the attacks and say

that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan carried them out.

But while the prosecution says Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had a radical view of Islam, was committed to violence and wanted to kill as many people as

possible, the defense argues he was influenced by his older brother to do it.

The different arguments matter because the government is seeking the death penalty.

DANNY CEVALLOS, cnn CORRESPONDENT: One of the hardest questions for our society to answer is when do we put our own citizens to death?

(ON SCREEN)

Who Gets The Death Penalty?

CEVALLOS: When it comes to the death penalty, we`re all over the place. As a very general proposition, capital crimes are usually reserved

for murder, and not just murder, but murder plus some additional facts that make it particularly egregious.

But even that`s not an absolute rule. Sometimes, as in the case of felony murder, a capital crime is when an unintentional killing results

during an inherently dangerous felony.

Suppose you and a friend rob a bank, but your friend loses it. You know, you`ve seen that movie. It`s always the friends that loses it and

shoots the clerk.

Well, you can be responsible for that murder, even though you never pulled the trigger and you never intended for anyone to get hurt.

Capital crimes are defined differently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Some states don`t have the death penalty at all.

But federal crimes may surprise you. Some federal capital crimes don`t even require a victim to be killed. You can be put to death for

espionage and crimes like treason. Perhaps the most famous example is Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted as spies and both executed,

husband and wife.

The interesting thing is because federal courts do have the death penalty, it can be said that there doesn`t exist a non-death penalty state.

So, for example, in Massachusetts, the state may not have the death penalty, but the federal government does. And that`s why someone like the

Boston bomber can be prosecuted in federal court and put to death for crimes and a trial that existed completely in Massachusetts.

Ultimately, it might be really difficult to articulate a rule. Whether or not to even seek the death penalty is usually discretionary.

You might think all this inconsistency is a bad thing. But maybe it isn`t. No two crimes are exactly alike. And in a life or death situation, maybe

prosecutors need discretion and maybe the courts do, too.