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 The federal jury last month found Tsarnaev guilty of killing three
people and wounding 264 others with a pair of homemade bombs at the
famed race's crowded finish line. For the past three weeks, jurors
have heard testimony from prosecution and defense witnesses.
Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty, contend the
21-year-old ethnic Chechen was an adherent of al Qaeda's militant
Islamic ideology who mounted the April 15, 2013 attack "to punish
America" for U.S. military campaigns in Muslim lands.
Defense attorneys contend that he was a willing but secondary player
in a scheme driven by his 26-year-old brother.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died on April 19, 2013, following a gunfight with
police that ended when Dzhokhar inadvertenly ran him over while
speeding away from the scene in a stolen vehicle. Hours earlier, the
pair had shot a university police officer to death as they prepared
to flee Boston.
 Last week, defense attorneys called witnesses, including Russian
relatives of Tsarnaev who recalled him as a kind, loving child. They
said they were fearful when Tamerlan and his mother, Zubeidat
Tsarnaeva, turned to militant Islam.
One of Tsarnaev's aunts, 64-year-old Patimat Suleimanova, was so
overcome at the sight of her nephew sitting at the defense table in
federal court in Boston that she began crying and was unable to
testify.
In seven days of testimony, Tsarnaev's public defenders have called
43 witnesses. After the defense rests its case, prosecutors will
have the opportunity to call a few more rebuttal witnesses before
each side gives its closing statement.
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Tsarnaev, who had been a college student with poor grades at the
time of the attack, has not spoken on his own behalf and is not
obligated to take the witness stand.
Martin Richard, 8, Chinese exchange student Lu Lingzi, 23, and
restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, died in the bombing. The
Tsarnaev brothers shot dead Massachusetts Institute of Technology
police officer Sean Collier three days later.
During the guilt and sentencing phases of the trial, the jury heard
from friends and relatives of all four people killed by the
Tsarnaevs, as well as several people who lost limbs when shrapnel
from two pressure-cooker bombs ripped through the crowd of
spectators, volunteers and athletes at the marathon.
The jury has only two sentencing choices: death or life in prison
without the possibility of release.
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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