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 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary
Committee on Wednesday that he would announce his decision before a
Friday deadline set by a U.S. District Court Judge in Boston.
Tsarnaev, a 20-year-old ethnic Chechen, is accused of detonating the
home-made bombs along with his older brother, Tamerlan, who was
killed during a shootout with police several days after the April 15
attack.
Three people, including an 8-year-old boy, were killed in the
blasts, which marked the worst attack on U.S. soil since September
11, 2001. Another 264 people were injured by shrapnel, many of them
losing limbs.
The case has been seen as an important test for the Justice
Department, which has vowed to prosecute acts of terrorism to the
fullest extent of the law, but would be doing so in a state that has
abolished the death penalty.
"I would say it is a complicated decision," said Austin Sarat,
Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College
in Massachusetts. "There are complicated cultural, political, and
legal questions."
He would be surprised, he said, if the Justice Department took the
death penalty off the table: "The President of the United States and
the people at the Justice Department are not abolitionists, they are
not against the death penalty... And they certainly will believe
that they have reasonable grounds for prosecuting it as a capital
case." A Boston Globe survey found last year that 57 percent of
Boston residents favored life in prison for Tsarnaev, if he is
convicted, with 33 percent in favor of execution. Massachusetts
abolished the death penalty in 1984, nearly four decades after the
last execution in the state, but the sentence can still be applied
in federal cases tried in the state.
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Attorneys for Tsarnaev have argued against a possible death
sentence, in part because they claim Dzhokhar was following the lead
of his older brother. They have also accused the government of
throwing up unfair obstacles to hinder preparation of their client's
defense, including seeking to rush the start of trial and not
sharing important evidence.
The blasts killed 8-year-old Martin Richard and injured several
members of his family who were standing near the finish line.
Krystle Campbell, 29, and Lu Lingzi, 23, also died in the
explosions.
Tsarnaev is accused as well in the post-explosion shooting death of
Sean Collier, 27, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police
officer.
A trial date for Tsarnaev has not yet been set. He has pleaded not
guilty to the charges.
(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; editing by Gunna Dickson)
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