Dyshea Smiley, 35, a tour information for Blazing Saddles since 2015, recollects the day of the assault clearly. “I just remember the silence after,” she mentioned, including, “Can you imagine a family of yours going on vacation and never coming back?”
Ms. Smiley mentioned she had sturdy emotions about Mr. Saipov’s punishment.
“I would give him the death penalty,” Ms. Smiley mentioned. “I don’t care about his life — he didn’t care about human life.”
Gwyneth Leech, 64, an artist who has lived in New York since 1999, nonetheless makes use of the bike path, navigating bollards put in after the assault to maintain motor autos away. She mentioned a memorial plaque commonly reminds her of the lives misplaced, however that reverence doesn’t require retribution.
“I’m opposed to the death penalty, so that’s it,” she mentioned.
Mr. Saipov’s lead lawyer, David E. Patton, the town’s federal public defender, acknowledged throughout the trial that his consumer had acted deliberately and had prompted “unimaginable pain and suffering.” But he disputed the federal government’s competition that Mr. Saipov was fixated on becoming a member of the Islamic State terrorist group. He mentioned his consumer had acted alone after spending hours caught up in propaganda and martyrdom movies.
Mr. Patton has mentioned in court docket that the protection plans to carry members of Mr. Saipov’s household to the United States to testify on his behalf, presumably to supply the jury a fuller portrait of Mr. Saipov, his childhood, his upbringing in Uzbekistan, his solitary hours on the street as a long-haul truck driver.
Austin Sarat, a professor of legislation and political science at Amherst College, who has written critically about capital punishment, mentioned that Mr. Saipov’s protection legal professionals should change his picture in jurors’ minds.