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| FILE - This file photo provided Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, charged with using a weapon of mass destruction in the bombings on April 15, 2013 near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. On Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the government to seek the death penalty in the case against Tsarnaev. |
BOSTON (AP)
-- Federal prosecutors Thursday announced they will seek the death
penalty against 20-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon
bombing, accusing him of betraying his adopted country by ruthlessly
carrying out a terrorist attack calculated to cause maximum carnage.
U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to press for Tsarnaev's
execution was widely expected. The twin blasts last April killed three
people and wounded more than 260, and over half the 30 federal charges
against Tsarnaev - including using a weapon of mass destruction to kill -
carry a possible death sentence.
"The nature
of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision,"
Holder said in a statement of just two terse and dispassionate sentences
that instantly raised the stakes in one of the most wrenching criminal
cases Boston has ever seen.
Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set.
In
a notice of intent filed in court, federal prosecutors in Boston listed
factors they contend justify a sentence of death against Tsarnaev, who
moved to the U.S. from Russia about a decade ago.
"Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev received asylum from the United States; obtained citizenship
and enjoyed the freedoms of a United States citizen; and then betrayed
his allegiance to the United States by killing and maiming people in the
United States," read the notice filed by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz.
Prosecutors
also cited Tsarnaev's "lack of remorse" and allegations that he killed
an MIT police officer as well as an 8-year-old boy, a "particularly
vulnerable" victim because of his age. They also said Tsarnaev committed
the killings after "substantial planning and premeditation."
In
addition, they cited his alleged decision to target the Boston
Marathon, "an iconic event that draws large crowds of men, women and
children to its final stretch, making it especially susceptible to the
act and effects of terrorism."
Tsarnaev's lawyers had no immediate comment.
In
an interview with ABC, Tsarnaev's mother, Zubeidat, who lives in
Russia, said: "How can I feel about this? I feel nothing. I can tell you
one thing, that I love my son. I will always feel proud of him. And I
keep loving him."
Prosecutors allege Tsarnaev,
then 19, and his 26-year-old brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia,
built and planted two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the
race to retaliate against the U.S. for its military actions in Muslim
countries.
The older brother, Tamerlan
Tsarnaev, died in a shootout with police during a getaway attempt days
after the bombing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was wounded but escaped and was
later captured hiding in a boat parked in a yard in a Boston suburb.
Authorities
said he scrawled inside the boat such things as "The US Government is
killing our innocent civilians" and "We Muslims are one body, you hurt
one you hurt us all."
Killed in the bombings
were: Martin Richard, 8, of Boston; Krystle Campbell, 29, of Medford;
and Lu Lingzi, 23, a Boston University graduate student from China. At
least 16 others lost limbs. Tsarnaev is also charged in the slaying of
the MIT officer and the carjacking of a motorist during the brothers'
getaway attempt.
Campbell's grandmother,
Lillian Campbell, said she isn't sure she supports the death penalty but
fears Tsarnaev will "end up living like a king" in prison.
"I
think it's the right decision to go after the death penalty," said Marc
Fucarile, who lost his right leg above the knee and suffered other
severe injuries in the bombing. "It shows people that if you are going
to terrorize our country, you are going to pay with your life."
Amato
DeLuca, a lawyer for Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow, said: "Whatever he's
alleged to have done, presumably he can pay for it with his life.
Putting this boy to death doesn't make any sense to me."
Well
before the attorney general's decision came down, Tsarnaev's defense
team added Judy Clarke, one of the nation's foremost death penalty
specialists. The San Diego lawyer has negotiated plea agreements that
saved the lives of such clients as the Unabomber and Olympic Park bomber
Eric Rudolph.
Legal experts have said that
court filings suggest the defense may try to save Tsarnaev's life by
arguing that he fell under the evil influence of his older brother.
"I
think their focus ... will probably be to characterize it as coercion,
intimidation and just his will being overborne by the older brother,"
said Gerry Leone, a former federal prosecutor in Boston who secured a
conviction against shoe bomber Richard Reid.
"They'll,
say, talk about how he was a teenager, never been in trouble before,
and in many respects, looks like the average United States college
student."
Massachusetts abolished its own
death penalty in 1984, and repeated attempts to reinstate it have failed
in the Legislature. A Boston Globe poll conducted in September found
that 57 percent of those questioned favored a life sentence for
Tsarnaev, while 33 percent supported the death penalty for him.
Jurors
for federal cases tried in Boston are drawn from the Boston
metropolitan and eastern Massachusetts - a politically liberal region,
but also the part of the state most directly affected by the tragedy.
Two
other federal death penalty cases have been brought in Massachusetts. A
former veterans hospital nurse who killed four patients by overdosing
them was spared the death penalty by a jury. A man accused in the
carjack killings of two Massachusetts men was sentenced to death in
2003, but the punishment was overturned and he is awaiting a new penalty
trial.
Since the federal death penalty was
reinstated in 1988, 70 death sentences have been imposed, but only three
people have been executed, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy
McVeigh in 2001.
The last federal execution
was in 2003, when Gulf War veteran Louis Jones Jr. was put to death for
kidnapping 19-year-old Army Pvt. Tracie McBride from a Texas military
base, raping her and beating her to death with a tire iron.
