BOSTON – Federal prosecutors Thursday announced they would 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.
The decision by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to press for Tsarnaev’s execution was widely expected.
The twin blasts in April killed three people and wounded more than 260, and more than 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 United States 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 attorneys 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.
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 state and federal prosecutor in Boston who secured a conviction against shoe bomber Richard Reid.
If a jury convicts Tsarnaev, it will then hold a second phase of the trial to determine his punishment.
Massachusetts abolished its own death penalty in 1984, and repeated attempts to reinstate it have failed in the legislature.