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 The 21-year-old ethnic Chechen was convicted earlier this month of
killing three people and injuring 264 in the April 15, 2013,
bombing, as well as shooting dead a police officer three days later
alongside his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Defense attorneys opened their case on Monday by arguing that
26-year-old Tamerlan, who died following a gunfight with police
hours after the police officer's shooting, was the driving force
behind the attack and that his younger brother had been raised to
follow his lead.
During the first day of defense witness testimony, the jury heard
from people who had seen Tamerlan's outbursts at a mosque near his
Cambridge, Massachusetts, home and from his mother-in-law, who
described his growing obsession with religion.
Martin Richard, 8, Chinese exchange student Lu Lingzi, 23, and
restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, died in the bombing.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier
was shot dead three days later.
 Richard's parents and Collier's sister have urged prosecutors to
drop their pursuit of a capital sentence, saying a deal in which
Tsarnaev would accept a life sentence in exchange for giving up his
appeal rights would allow the incident to fade from the spotlight
more quickly.
One of Tsarnaev's attorneys echoed that sentiment in his opening
statement on Monday.
Federal prosecutors previously cited al Qaeda materials found on
Tsarnaev's computers and a note suggesting that the attack was an
act of retribution for U.S. military campaigns in Muslim-dominated
countries.
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They also showed the jury a surveillance photo taken in a holding
cell at Boston federal court while Tsarnaev awaited his first court
appearance in July 2013, in which he extends his middle finger in a
vulgar gesture.
Defense attorney David Bruck noted that image came at the end of a
30-second video in which Tsarnaev also fussed with his hair in the
mirror covering the security camera.
Bruck urged the jurors to consider a new side of Tsarnaev over the
next two weeks.
"You can’t ever accurately evaluate anything, not even a picture,
until you know the context," Bruck said. "Whether it's a grainy
still from a surveillance camera or a young man's life, you have to
know the context."
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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