Does Tamerlan Tsarnaev deserve a proper burial?

Funeral home owner Peter Stefan has accepted the body of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but he's having trouble finding a cemetery willing to let him bury the remains. Tsarnaev's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, traveled from his home in Maryland to see to burial rites at Stefan's Worcester, Mass., mortuary. Tsarni said he understands that "no one wants to associate their names with such evil events," but that a proper burial is what tradition, religion, and morals require. A small group of protesters outside Stefan's business argue that given the toll of the attack, "this terrorist" doesn't deserve to be buried on U.S. soil.

Not everyone puts it in such terms, but plenty of people share the protesters' sentiments. Robert Healy — city manager in Cambridge, Mass., where Tsarnaev lived — said it wouldn't be "in the best interest of 'peace within the city'" to bury Tsnarnaev there. The attack killed three people and injured hundreds more. "It's not much of a mystery why cemetery owners would be loathe" to give Tsarnaev a final resting place, says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. A marked burial site for Tsarnaev could create problems well into the future.

Legally, though, there's not much to debate. "Like most states, Massachusetts law provides that 'every dead body of a human being dying within the commonwealth ... shall be decently buried," entombed, or cremated within a reasonable time, says Tanya D. Marsh at The Huffington Post. "The person having custody of the remains is charged with carrying out this obligation. In Tsarnaev's case, his uncle appears to have taken responsibility for his remains after Tsarnaev's wife refused." How he accomplishes this, however, is his problem. "Tsarnaev's are not the first infamous set of remains posing these questions." Timothy McVeigh, Adam Lanza, Dylan Klebold, and Ted Bundy were cremated, but that's not an option with Tsarnaev, as he was a Muslim and, generally, observant Muslims frown on cremation as a means of disposing of human remains.

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Some say the solution is burying Tsarnaev in an undisclosed, unmarked place. Community activist William T. Breault, chairman of the Main South Alliance for Public Safety, has another idea. He's reportedly setting up a fund to collect donations to send Tsarnaev's body to his native Kyrgyzstan, or the Dagestan region of Russia, where his parents live. The cost, according to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, would be $3,000 to $7,000. "I don't look at it as I'm helping his family," Breault said. "I look at it as I'm helping the citizens of Boston, Worcester, and this state move on from this problem."

It shouldn't be this complicated, says Mathew N. Schmalz at The Washington Post. As Stefan, the funeral home owner, says, "We are burying a dead body. That's what we do." Society entrusts certain people with unwanted tasks. One is burying the dead. "Someone has to do it."