Keller @ Large: How Will Lack Of Sorrow Weigh With Tsarnaev Jury?
BOSTON (CBS) - That was quite the closing the Tsarnaev defense team pulled off on Monday, putting famed anti-death penalty crusader Sister Helen Prejean on the stand to talk about prison conversations she allegedly had with the defendant.
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According to Sister Prejean, during one of no less than five visits she had with him, she asked him about his victims, and he said, "emphatically…'no one deserves to suffer like they did,'…his response was so spontaneous. I had every reason to believe that it was sincere."
Lest jurors miss the point, she added that the man who helped plan and prepare for the Marathon bombings well in advance, calmly placed his bomb behind an eight-year-old boy and his family, and wrote out a confession just before his arrest in which he bragged of his actions, was "genuinely sorry for what he did. I knew, I felt it."
I'm quite sure Sister Prejean wouldn't exaggerate or fabricate anything in a matter this serious. But her testimony raises an important question.
Why, if he's "genuinely sorry," did he fail to show any sign of that sorrow during months of graphic testimony to the carnage he caused and the horror it inflicted?
As the jury's deliberations finally begin, it's impossible for anyone to know what they might do.
While I support the death penalty as a just outcome here, I could certainly understand one or more jurors, confronted with signs of remorse from the killer, concluding that life in a tough prison is good enough, that this was a foolish, arrogant kid who didn't really understand how vile his crime was until after the fact.
But he and his high-priced lawyers were only able to muster one moment of sorrow, when he saw one of his aunts cry, plus the dubious testimony of Sister Prejean.
And that leaves me thinking there's a chance this jury may give this mass murderer what he so richly deserves.
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