So the Justice Department says it will seek to execute Dzhokhar -Tsarnaev if he is convicted of participating in the bombings that killed two young women and a little boy while maiming scores of others.
If I had to bet, I'd say this was a tactical decision made in Washington, hoping to persuade Tsarnaev's lawyers to cop a plea in exchange for life in prison.
No trial, no mess.
But what if the government really wants to kill him?
Putting the moral issues aside for a moment, from a practical point of view, the idea of the government showing its revulsion at Tsarnaev's taking of human life by taking his doesn't make sense.
Many of Tsarnaev's victims oppose the idea of killing him. There are others who would fight for the chance to start the drip.
But, for argument's sake, step away from the concept of revenge or even the notion that the punishment should fit the crime, and ask: what is accomplished by executing -Tsarnaev?
Surely, one of the reasons that he and especially his venal, older brother -embarked on their rampage was to draw attention to what they saw as some kind of U.S.-led war against -Muslims.
What better way to reward Tsarnaev than to make a martyr out of him. If he is convicted and thrown in a prison cell for the rest of his life, he will be forgotten by other jihadists even -before they realized he existed. But a dead Tsarnaev will become a piece of propaganda.
I can't imagine a convicted Tsarnaev would ever be placed in a prison's general population. But if he were, it would only be a matter of time before some other inmate sidled up to him to ask the ageless question, "What are you in for?"
Putting Tsarnaev to death is, in the end, putting him to sleep. That's not much punishment.
Let him live. Let him scratch the days into the wall of his cell. Let him count the weeks, the months, the years. Let him grow old alone. Maybe then he realize what he has forfeited and what he has robbed from people that sunny, horrible Patriots Day.
Kevin Cullen writes for The Boston Globe.