Using Shakespeare To Sentence The Boston Bomber

All we’re hearing about in the news is how he apologized to his victims, but the more interesting story today is how the judge quoted Shakespeare when sentencing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death.

Want to take any guesses? I thought maybe something about the quality of mercy, but apparently the judge was not in that kind of mood.

“The evil that men do lives after them,” he said, “The good is oft interred with their bones. So it will be for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.” 

“Whenever your name is mentioned, what will be remembered is the evil you have done. No one will remember that your teachers were fond of you. No one will mention that your friends found you funny and fun to be with. No one will say you were a talented athlete or that you displayed compassion in being a Best Buddy or that you showed more respect to your women friends than your male peers did. 

“What will be remembered is that you murdered and maimed innocent people and that you did it willfully and intentionally. You did it on purpose.”

Harsh. I approve.

He later went on to quote Iago, but from Verdi’s opera rather than the original Shakespeare text, when he spoke of those who believe in a cruel god.  I can’t find the actual quote, does anybody know it?

“Surely someone who believes that God smiles on and rewards the deliberate killing and maiming of innocents believes in a cruel God,” the judge said. “That is not, it cannot be, the God of Islam. Anyone who has been led to believe otherwise has been maliciously and willfully deceived.”

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