Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Sentenced to Death

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death by a jury at a federal court in Boston for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, an attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260.

In April, the jury that gave Friday’s decision found Tsarnaev guilty of 30 charges relating to the attack.

The Guardian reports:

Seventeen of those counts carried a possible death sentence, and despite hearing mitigating evidence from family members — and other such as Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who opposes the death penalty — the jury voted unanimously to send 21-year-old Tsarnaev to his death.

Prejean was the final witness for the defence in the so-called “penalty phase” of the trial, in which, having found Tsarnaev guilty on the 17 capital counts, the jury heard new evidence from the prosecution and defence designed to help them weigh “aggravating factors” against “mitigating factors” in deciding whether to put Tsarnaev to death for his crimes.

The sentence brings to end the five-month-long trial, in which 154 witnesses testified, more than 40 of them in the penalty phase.

In her closing argument on Tuesday, defence attorney Judy Clarke made one final appeal to the jury for mercy. “Mercy is never earned, it is bestowed,” she said.

Read more here.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.