Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a former college student who admitted he helped carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, was convicted Wednesday of a sweeping set of charges that set the stage for the jury to decide if he should get the death penalty.
The federal jury deliberated 11 hours before finding Mr. Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 charges he faced in the attack, which killed a boy and two young women, and its aftermath, including the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer and a carjacking.
Seventeen of the counts carry the possibility of death.
Courtroom Nine in the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse was quiet Wednesday as bombing survivors and family members of victims listened intently to the lengthy verdict. Dressed in a dark jacket and blue V-neck sweater, the 21-year-old Mr. Tsarnaev fidgeted and looked down at paperwork, showing little reaction.
Afterward, Denise Richard, the mother of 8-year-old victim Martin Richard, lingered before she walked from the courtroom gallery, looking toward Mr. Tsarnaev and appearing to wipe away tears while her husband rubbed her back.
The verdict closes one chapter on the April 15, 2013, attack, when twin pressure-cooker bombs detonated near the marathon finish line. The explosions also injured more than 260 people, including 17 who lost limbs, and marred one of the city’s most cherished events.
“We’re grateful for the outcome today,” said Karen Brassard, a New Hampshire woman who was injured at the bombing along with her husband, and spoke outside the courthouse on behalf of a group of survivors. “It’s not a happy occasion, but it’s one more step behind us,” she said.
The trial moves into a second phase, which could begin early next week and is expected to last about two weeks. The same jury of seven women and five men will reconvene to hear testimony and decide whether to sentence Mr. Tsarnaev to death or to life in prison without parole.
During 16 days of testimony, prosecutors depicted Mr. Tsarnaev as a willing killer who had been radicalized by online extremist Islamist teachings that called for avenging Muslim deaths.
Although he pleaded not guilty, Mr. Tsarnaev admitted culpability at the outset of the trial through his lawyers. The defense team focused not on acquittal, but on convincing the jury to spare him capital punishment by portraying him as a confused young man from a broken home who was controlled by his older brother Tamerlan, the mastermind of the attack.
His 26-year-old brother died four days after the bombings during a firefight with police.
Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers mounted a relatively short defense, calling just a handful of witnesses in an attempt to establish Tamerlan as the primary actor who bought the bomb components and researched them on the Internet.
The next phase is likely to be considerably more challenging for the prosecution and may shed new light on Mr. Tsarnaev’s psychology and complex family dynamics.Jurors had to be willing to impose capital punishment to be seated, but the death penalty is unpopular in left-leaning, heavily Roman Catholic Massachusetts, where bishops across the state this week publicly denounced execution for Mr. Tsarnaev. Massachusetts prohibits the death penalty for state crimes—the last local execution was in 1947—but federal authorities can still seek capital punishment there.
When weighing execution, the jury legally must consider factors that may be favorable to Mr. Tsarnaev, such as his young age or family hardships. Mr. Tsarnaev is an ethnic Chechen whose family emigrated from a troubled region of Russia to Cambridge, Mass., in about 2002.
In a preview of her approach for the death penalty phase, lead defense lawyer Judy Clarke conceded during closing arguments that her client put a bomb down “knowing that within minutes it would explode.” But, she said, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev bought into Tamerlan’s plan and beliefs, even being jealous that his brother had received the “reward of paradise” after his death.
Still, some victims’ families say the attack calls for the harshest punishment.
“Justice for me would be the death penalty,” said Liz Norden, a Stoneham, Mass., resident whose sons J.P., 35, and Paul, 33, both lost their right legs from the bomb that was set down by the younger Mr. Tsarnaev. Ms. Norden watched the trial daily.
The government argued that Mr. Tsarnaev deliberately planted a bomb—packed with nails, BBs, and explosives and hidden in a black backpack—behind a row of spectators that included children.
Prosecutors and witnesses explained in gruesome detail how that bomb killed Martin Richard and Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student. Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager, was killed by another bomb planted nearby by Tamerlan.
Jurors saw autopsy photos of the victims and heard how the bombs tore them open and ripped limbs from their bodies.
They also heard detailed testimony about the April 18, 2013, shooting death of MIT campus officer Sean Collier, who was killed in his patrol car by the brothers after their photos were released as the suspects in the bombing, and heard from Dun Meng, who was carjacked by the pair that same night in his Mercedes-Benz.
They killed Mr. Collier in an attempt to get his gun, and further arm themselves, as they attempted to flee the Boston area, prosecutors said.
The federal jury deliberated 11 hours before finding Mr. Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 charges he faced in the attack, which killed a boy and two young women, and its aftermath, including the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer and a carjacking.
Seventeen of the counts carry the possibility of death.
Courtroom Nine in the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse was quiet Wednesday as bombing survivors and family members of victims listened intently to the lengthy verdict. Dressed in a dark jacket and blue V-neck sweater, the 21-year-old Mr. Tsarnaev fidgeted and looked down at paperwork, showing little reaction.
Afterward, Denise Richard, the mother of 8-year-old victim Martin Richard, lingered before she walked from the courtroom gallery, looking toward Mr. Tsarnaev and appearing to wipe away tears while her husband rubbed her back.
The verdict closes one chapter on the April 15, 2013, attack, when twin pressure-cooker bombs detonated near the marathon finish line. The explosions also injured more than 260 people, including 17 who lost limbs, and marred one of the city’s most cherished events.
“We’re grateful for the outcome today,” said Karen Brassard, a New Hampshire woman who was injured at the bombing along with her husband, and spoke outside the courthouse on behalf of a group of survivors. “It’s not a happy occasion, but it’s one more step behind us,” she said.
The trial moves into a second phase, which could begin early next week and is expected to last about two weeks. The same jury of seven women and five men will reconvene to hear testimony and decide whether to sentence Mr. Tsarnaev to death or to life in prison without parole.
During 16 days of testimony, prosecutors depicted Mr. Tsarnaev as a willing killer who had been radicalized by online extremist Islamist teachings that called for avenging Muslim deaths.
Although he pleaded not guilty, Mr. Tsarnaev admitted culpability at the outset of the trial through his lawyers. The defense team focused not on acquittal, but on convincing the jury to spare him capital punishment by portraying him as a confused young man from a broken home who was controlled by his older brother Tamerlan, the mastermind of the attack.
His 26-year-old brother died four days after the bombings during a firefight with police.
Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers mounted a relatively short defense, calling just a handful of witnesses in an attempt to establish Tamerlan as the primary actor who bought the bomb components and researched them on the Internet.
The next phase is likely to be considerably more challenging for the prosecution and may shed new light on Mr. Tsarnaev’s psychology and complex family dynamics.Jurors had to be willing to impose capital punishment to be seated, but the death penalty is unpopular in left-leaning, heavily Roman Catholic Massachusetts, where bishops across the state this week publicly denounced execution for Mr. Tsarnaev. Massachusetts prohibits the death penalty for state crimes—the last local execution was in 1947—but federal authorities can still seek capital punishment there.
When weighing execution, the jury legally must consider factors that may be favorable to Mr. Tsarnaev, such as his young age or family hardships. Mr. Tsarnaev is an ethnic Chechen whose family emigrated from a troubled region of Russia to Cambridge, Mass., in about 2002.
In a preview of her approach for the death penalty phase, lead defense lawyer Judy Clarke conceded during closing arguments that her client put a bomb down “knowing that within minutes it would explode.” But, she said, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev bought into Tamerlan’s plan and beliefs, even being jealous that his brother had received the “reward of paradise” after his death.
Still, some victims’ families say the attack calls for the harshest punishment.
“Justice for me would be the death penalty,” said Liz Norden, a Stoneham, Mass., resident whose sons J.P., 35, and Paul, 33, both lost their right legs from the bomb that was set down by the younger Mr. Tsarnaev. Ms. Norden watched the trial daily.
The government argued that Mr. Tsarnaev deliberately planted a bomb—packed with nails, BBs, and explosives and hidden in a black backpack—behind a row of spectators that included children.
Prosecutors and witnesses explained in gruesome detail how that bomb killed Martin Richard and Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student. Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager, was killed by another bomb planted nearby by Tamerlan.
Jurors saw autopsy photos of the victims and heard how the bombs tore them open and ripped limbs from their bodies.
They also heard detailed testimony about the April 18, 2013, shooting death of MIT campus officer Sean Collier, who was killed in his patrol car by the brothers after their photos were released as the suspects in the bombing, and heard from Dun Meng, who was carjacked by the pair that same night in his Mercedes-Benz.
They killed Mr. Collier in an attempt to get his gun, and further arm themselves, as they attempted to flee the Boston area, prosecutors said.
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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial
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