No verdict in Boston bomb trial; jury returns Wednesday
BOSTON — A federal jury weighing the fate of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev quit for the night after 7½ hours of deliberation Tuesday.
Tsarnaev's lawyers have acknowledged that he and his brother carried out the bombing, but jurors still have to consider 30 counts against him, including 17 that carry the death penalty.
Fifteen of the counts contain a series of sub-clause questions that jurors must take up one by one and try to answer unanimously.
If Tsarnaev is found guilty now, the second phase of the trial will consider whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.
The charges break down into four main categories. Twelve pertain to two pressure-cooker bombs used at the marathon on April 15, 2013, when three people died and more than 260 were injured. Three more charges deal with conspiracy; another three cover the fatal shooting on April 18, 2013, of MIT security officer Sean Collier.
The final 12 address what happened after Collier's murder, including a carjacking, robbery and use of improvised explosives against Watertown, Mass., police officers.
Court watchers expect jurors to return a guilty verdict, especially because his defense team has acknowledged his involvement in the bombings. Nevertheless, jurors need time to work through each question even when a defendant isn't fighting the charges, according to Michael Coyne, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law.
"We've seen this in other cases, where the evidence is virtually overwhelming but they go out and take their time," Coyne said. "I would think we're likely to see the jury go out for hours. … It could extend more than one day. But I would expect that within a few days, we would have the verdict."
Closing arguments concluded Monday in the guilt-or-innocence phase of the trial with prosecutors ratcheting up their case that Tsarnaev, 21, is not the "passive, go-along-to-get-along guy" they say the defense made him out to be.
Three people died and more than 260 were injured in twin blasts near the finish line of the marathon.
Prosecutors described Tsarnaev as a true believer in the cause of radical, violent jihad to avenge what he saw as harm by the United States against Muslims.
"The plan was to make this bombing as memorable as it could possibly be," Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb said.
Prosecutors had the overwhelming advantage from the start.
Admitting "It was him" on the trial's first day, the defense team said Tsarnaev had coordinated with his late older brother, Tamerlan, to leave two explosive-filled backpacks in a crowd on Boston's Boylston Street near the marathon finish line. His attorneys called just four witnesses; none suggested Tsarnaev was innocent.
"We are not asking you to go easy on Dzhokhar," defense attorney Judy Clarke said in her closing argument. His actions "deserve to be condemned. And the time is now."
Prosecutors pulled no punches, calling 92 witnesses over 15 days, including double amputees and the father of an 8-year-old boy who was killed. They presented a trove of more than 4,000 hours of surveillance footage that left little doubt about the Tsarnaevs' culpability, not only in the marathon bombings but also in the murder of Collier.
If that weren't enough, they hammered home his motive: retribution on Allah's behalf for the harm he said America had done to Muslims.
They quoted words Tsarnaev had written inside a backyard boat where he hid during the manhunt: "stop killing our innocent people and we will stop" was among the statements. These were not the work of his brother, Tamerlan, whom the defense has blamed for conceiving the terrorist plot. Tamerlan died after Tsarnaev ran him over in a shootout.
"He still wrote that manifesto in the boat when the brother was no longer around," Coyne said. That body of evidence, he said, was likely "very damaging."
Seeking to lay foundations for a death penalty sentence, the government sought to show Tsarnaev not only aided and abetted in his brother's crimes but took initiative, acted as an equal partner and wasn't merely his brother's pawn.
For example, witnesses to a Watertown shootout during the manhunt said they saw him hurling pipe bombs at officers. According to their accounts, he could have escaped the scene in a stolen Mercedes SUV, but instead turned the vehicle around and raced back in a failed attempt to run over the officers. Before that, they saw him lighting fuses and hurling bombs.