The Jury hasn't yet begun the sentencing phase of Jodi Arias - soft spoken, baby faced convicted murderess of ex boyfriend Travis Alexander, who stabbed her ex twenty nine times, shot him in the head and literally cut his throat finally causing the young man's death.
As prosecutor Juan Martinez said so aptly "Travis did not die an easy death."
In truth it had to be a terrifying, painful and awful death, much like many of the victims of the Boston bombings experienced. Among the dead at the epi-center of the handmade but lethal bombs was an eight year old boy. His mother was critically injured in the blast, his father the only one physically not maimed or dead.
There were hundreds of wounded victims many of whom lost limbs as the bombs were designed with shrapnel and nails , all carefully constructed by two young brothers one of whom survived a police shoot out, the older brother killed in a shootout where one officer was killed and others wounded.
If you wonder how these two terrible sets of crimes intersect in this Post, the answer can be found in of all places, the facial features of the young bombing suspect ( he confessed to Police while at the hospital even proffering details of other targets thus its fai to assume he was involved).
We have read quite a bit about the two brother bombers, and most of it paints the substantially older Tamaran as the " real "culprit" or the at the very least the instigator with his very young and impressionable brother being dragged into Tamarans recently adapted extremist Muslim views.
Tsarnaev, the surviving younger of the two brothers arrested for the bombings at first cooperated with police admitting his part in the Bombings. "The plan" involved home made bombs with shrapnel, nails and ball bearings designed to inflict the most pain and damage to their victims.
One of the three murdered was an eight year old boy. His mother was gravely injured and his father who managed to miraculously escape serious injury, is emotionally devastated by both the event and his losses.
The attached New Yorker article is excellent it takes an honest look at our country's values and mores as it relates to crime and our criminal justice system. This is not done in the usual white bread" journalism" we are accustomed to reading and the milquetoast media's regurgitation of whatever the authorities feed them.
No The New Yorker goes straight to the issue at hand before it has even had a chance to dig its heels in: A defendant's appearance manner, class distinction and yes communicative abilities and intelligence all weigh in much too heavily and overtly in the outcome of the ultimate adjudication of their crimes.
If the accused is " cute" such as Tsameav could be considered certainly compared to his much more ominous brother Tamaran. Tamaran being older and deceased makes the naturally more likely bad guy" and we american are very prejudice people when it comes to how a person looks.
Lookism.
Sounds much more innocuous than it is even as it affects the hiring process promotions salary ranges and especially as it enters the sacred arena of Lady Justice who remember is blindfolded in a perfect world.
Justice is not blind and as this article makes its point, the young man pictured in the three photos above is almost certainly a pre-meditated killer of innocents including a child.
Study the differences in his countenance in the first photo with the rose and his boyish tussled look of innocence...with the other two photos taken from cell phones on the day of the bombings.
Notice the expression; there is a smile playing at his lips an arrogance at the mayhem he just caused as the crowds run and the blood in rivulets, this cute tousled young boy does not appear to be an empathetic figure anymore does he?
The point is this; We as individuals and communities society the media all have a part in this - we must begin a retraining process when it comes to our perception of evil and criminals and such facile and random things like physical attributes and manipulative personas that play up their looks their youth their intelligence their childhood abuse et al
Already, like pretty snub nosed Jodi Arias, who managed to garner a large fan club from her arrest throughout the five years until her trial, Boston Marathi bomber Tasmania would seem to be titillating en masse empathy which correlates with judicial mercy And this empathy is non denominational; It is coming from Christians Muslims, Jews Buddhists alike.
for his hideous crimes will indeed follow if we allow this type of thinking to permeate out natural human inclination reflexive almost - to want to believe someone that looks cute is soft spoken has special language skills or talents what have you - a corresponding leniency magically ensues - from our Criminal Judicial system with the Judicial end being most culpable as it is rife with attorneys whose jobs it is to groom violent criminals having long abandoned actual lawyering the most notorious or successful Lawyers are no more than PR men and women with usually many more resources than their civil servant counterparts.be it through the jury judge even a lawyers zealousness in defending his client and a prosecutors equal vigor and commitment to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law including the all important sentencing phase.
It seems as if it should be a no brainier , yet we have seen time and again attractive defendants men and women found innocent by Jury's when evidence is overwhelming against them - or ridiculously lenient sentences for crimes such as multiple murder rendering plea bargains made with the devil, despite the degree of depravity and suffering caused by their crimes.
The senseless maiming and murder caused by the Boston Marathon bombings although not long enough in our rear view window to be fading in our collective hearts and souls, there does appear to be a movement of sorts toward shifting the worst of the blame onto the now dead Tamaran and thereby extending a leniency towards his co murderer and brother. Why?
The author of this piece wisely suggests that once again this young mans baby face and youth have already infiltrated out minds- an act of crime that has left so many innocent people traumatized and severely wounded many having lost limbs as a result of the blast, as time puts distance between the actual terror blood and trauma, many people within our populace appear to be empathizing somewhat with Tsarney who the family and thus our media is painting as the more innocuous of the hapless terrorist pair, Ive personally read about 60 Posts citing his older brother Tamaran as the CULPRIT who simply dragged his younger somewhat submissive bother into the fray, first with his extremist Muslim views and than the slow brainwashing that led to one of the worst terrorist acts since 911 on American soil.
As this writer in the New Yorker writer so aptly puts it, as a country we have proven ourselves time and again to be too " forgiving" when it comes to certain criminals only. Notice I didn't say certain crimes. The crimes which the victim or victims are the very embodiment of - actually wind up mattering the least in this our country's sacrosanct Courts,
Jury's are indeed less apt to award the harshest albeit the appropriate and just punishments to those convicted men and women who " look a certain way; a way that we equate with attractive, cute, innocent looking, baby faced and countless other adjectives that are equally superfluous.
Jodi Arias was so certain that her looks would completely negate the overwhelming evidence of her violent murder of Travis Alexander, that she was literally ashen faced shocked when the Jury found her guilty of pre - meditated murder! This despite her giving thee three separate stories to Arizona Police about the last day she spent with Travis.
The stories began with I left him alive to two men dressed in masks and black ninja clothing came in and shot Travis while she hid. The last version at this point literally well over a year after this man was butchered in his bathroom Arias claimed...okay I shot him because he body slammed me for dropping his camera - and by the way I am was an abused woman."
Totally destroying the credibility of this was the fact that the gun used on Travis was the same as one stolen from ARIAS'S grandmother a month prior to the crimes just when he began dating another woman. Arias also could not recall the 30 stab wounds she made with a kitchen knife all over Travis's back, legs, his feet and his hands as he fought to fend off the knife. She finally cut his throat from behind him as he lay in his hallway bleeding to death from a heart wound..
Attractive now librarian - looking, the lawyers gave arias a Marm- like makeover underscoring her natural beauty her once platinum dyed hair now was jet black natural, often held back with girls barrettes whilst donning prim blouses and reading glasses for most of her court appearances.
Her lawyers who always flanked her both one female and one male, knew all about jodi looks and how they could make the most out of them. Genderism alone was in their favor Jurys simply do not convict or put to death women as easily as they will a man guilty of the same crimes. Since they were aware that they were up to their necks in evidence against Arias.they threw her up on the witness stand clearly going for the lets make the jury so familiar with Jodi that they cant put her to death via Guilt!
They did what Casey Anthony's Lawyer did, so obviously guilty she having changed her story about missing Cay-lee from Nannies that didn't exist to her car that reeked of dead bodies occurring to her own mothers call to Police detract focus from the facts and re-focus the jury and the collective american consciousness on their clients mousy demure voice tapes of sex talk Arias taped possibly without Travis's knowledge and as she knew she was being taped her voice and demanor reeked of an all american sweet and innocent young woman.
Thankfully the Jury followed instructions to a tee and M s Arias was found guilty of First Degree murder a charge she told a television interviewer no jury would ever convict her of this!"
The Sentencing portion of Aria's trial had to be delayed while Arias "recovered" in the suicide watch ward of a mental institution connected to the prison.
Appearence Age Baby-face Causing Empathetic View towards surviving Boston Bomber!
