Boston Marathon bomber sentenced to death

G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Special to USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Boston marathon bomber sentenced to death Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received the death penalty for his role in the Boston marathon bombing.

BOSTON — A jury of seven women and five men sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by execution, closing one of the most painful chapters in this city's history.

Tsarnaev looked straight ahead, showing no emotion, as the sentence was read. Jurors wiped away tears as the judge thanked them for their service.

"Your service as jurors in this case has been the very antithesis of mob law," U.S District Judge George O'Toole Jr. told the jury. "You can and you should be justly proud of your service in this case."

The judgment comes from the same jury who found Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 counts related to the April 15, 2013, bomb attacks and four-day manhunt. The jury found him responsible for killing four people, seriously maiming 17 and injuring hundreds more.

Reaction to the sentencing was swift with praise for the difficult work of the jury in making a decision that many said was just.

Marathon survivor Sydney Corcoran posted on Twitter that she was relieved with the decision.

"My mother and I think that NOW he will go away and we will be able to move on. Justice. In his own words, 'Eye for an eye.' "

Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said after the decision that Tsarnaev's crime was not motivated by religion; it was motivated by politics. She said the gravity of the crime, the murder of a child, a police officer and two young women merited the death penalty.

"This was an act of terror," she said.

His four defense attorneys left the courthouse through a back door. They walked away quickly together, ignoring questions from reporters.

Tsarnaev will next face a sentencing hearing to officially sentence him. No date has been set yet. After he is formally sentenced, the Federal Bureau of Prisons will decide where he will be incarcerated until the date of the execution or if he appeals the sentencing.

In the end, it all came down to one question: Should Tsarnaev be put to death or spend the rest of his life in a federal prison with no possibility of parole?

In reaching their verdict, the jurors weighed 12 aggravating factors against 21 mitigating factors. They were charged to consider the suffering Tsarnaev caused, his intent, his character and his relationships, among other things.

By choosing the death penalty, the jurors clearly rejected the defense's efforts to show Tsarnaev's older brother Tamerlan was the mastermind of the attack and the younger man was only following a charismatic, domineering sibling.

There may be an epilogue, however, with defense appeals of the sentence, which could last years.

The verdict ends an extraordinary trial that brought amputee victims and a bereaved father face-to-face with the 21-year-old man who tore their bodies and lives apart in an act of terrorism two years earlier. In the first phase of the trial, as jurors considered guilt or innocence, they visited the boat where he hid, bled and carved in wood what prosecutors called his manifesto.

"Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop," Tsarnaev wrote in a reference to Muslims' suffering around the world.

From the trial's courtroom start on March 4, the defense team acknowledged his involvement in the bombings, which he planned and carried out with his older brother, who died during the manhunt after Dzhokhar ran over him fleeing police. The big question from day one was which sentence the jury would choose.

Only two options were available because Tsarnaev was charged under federal law, which requires at least life in prison for 17 of the counts.

Even defense attorney Judy Clarke acknowledged that aggravating factors did indeed exist.

"Check them off," she told jurors in her closing statement. She explained there should be no doubt his crimes met the aggravating criteria because they were premeditated, cruel, depraved and especially heinous.

Clarke went on to emphasize, though, that any mitigating factor could outweigh all others, and any single juror could be "a safeguard against the death penalty." She urged jurors to consider that "Dzhokhar never would have done this but for Tamerlan" and said now he regrets following his brother to such a violent end.

"The critical thing is that Dzhokhar is remorseful today," Clarke said. "He has grown over the last two years. He is sorry. And he is remorseful."

Prosecutors weren't buying it. In the government's rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb looked closely at what Tsarnaev reportedly said about his victims in a recent meeting with Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who is an anti-death-penalty activist. She testified that he told her, "No one deserves to suffer like they did."

"That doesn't tell you much," Weinreb said. He said the sentiment is consistent with statements Tsarnaev wrote in the boat: "I don't like killing innocent people, but in this case it is allowed" and "I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished." He said Tsarnaev's belief system justified killing innocent people to avenge the deaths of other innocents and consequently prevents him from feeling remorse.

Only three criminals have been executed under federal law in more than a quarter century: Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 2001, drug trafficker and murderer Juan Raul Garza in 2001 and kidnapper, rapist and murderer Louis Jones Jr. in 2003. Sixty-one convicts are on federal death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Contributing: Marisol Bello