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The trial for Boston marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev began this week with a statement that the defense would not dispute his involvement in the attack.
Brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev detonated several bombs at the finish line of the Boston marathon in 2013, killing three people and injuring hundreds. The older brother, Tamerlan, was killed three days later after police shot him and then his brother ran over him in a stolen SUV.
Dzhokhar was found the next day hiding in a covered boat.
Defense attorney Judy Clark said she would not dispute the prosecution's claim that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev carried out the attack, according to WGBH reporter Emily Rooney, who was in the courtroom.
"The first thing she said was, we’re not going to argue with what the government has said. He was there. He was on there on Boylston Street. He put on a backpack loaded with bombs. He set the backpack down, he detonated his own bomb," Rooney said.
Instead, the defense will argue that the younger brother was not a co-conspirator in the attack, but that he was "drawn to a path of violence" by his older brother Tamerlan.
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan, who are ethnically Chechen and Muslim, emigrated to the U.S. as children with their family from Russia. The indictment for the trial states that the brothers' involvement with Islamic extremist principles was a factor in the attack.
The case will be decided by a panel of 18 jurors, chosen from a pool of 1,300. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces 17 charges that could result in the death penalty. Capital punishment was outlawed in Massachusetts in 1982 but remains legal in federal cases like this one.
Warm up questions
- What do you know about the Boston marathon bombing?
- How are juries selected?
Critical thinking questions
- From what you know about relationships between older and younger siblings, do you think it is possible Tamerlan was the instigator and persuaded Dzhokhar to help him? What kind of proof would the defense team have to provide?
- How do the actions and influence of his brother affect Dzhokhar's level of responsibility and the punishment?
- What does it mean to have a fair trial? Do the procedures to ensure a fair trial change in a case like this one?
- Why was it difficult to find jurors for this trial?
