DEATH...NOT REALLY



The show trial of the Boston Marathon bomber ended yesterday with a death sentence. The first trial, that is. Many more hours and many more millions of dollars with be spent on appeals. It will be another monument to the ineptitude of American bureaucracy. American justice has been drowning in American bureaucracy for decades. Advances in science and technology have not managed to dent the juggernaut of political influence on a system which should be simply about truth-seeking and equal justice for all.

 

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will get three meals a day in a concrete box somewhere, probably in Indiana. No real effort will go into treating whatever ignorance or mental illness led to his crime. He will, in essence, be tortured for many years to come, because he will no know his fate. Perhaps this is fitting, but it is neither humane nor practical.

American justice is neither humane nor practical. It is mired in religious superstition. It is mired in political jousting for media attention. It is mired by Constitutional fundamentalists who are uncaring about science, technology or simple truths of the human condition. It is mired by lawyers. It is mired by too much money spent for all the wrong reasons in all the wrong places.