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 Attorneys for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, opened their case last week
by bluntly declaring that the defendant and his older brother were
responsible for the attack as well as the fatal shooting of a police
officer three days later, in an effort to focus attention on the
brother's role in the plot.
Defense lawyers contend that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who died
following a gunbattle with police three days after the bombing, was
the driving force behind the attack, with Dzhokhar following along
out of a sense of submission. By pinning the bulk of the blame on
Tamerlan, defense lawyers hope to persuade the jury at U.S. District
Court in Boston not to sentence their client to death.
Prosecutors maintain that Dzhokhar also read jihadist magazines
online and "believed that he was a soldier in a holy war against
Americans."
 In the first two days of testimony, the jury heard from 16
prosecution witnesses, including survivors of the blasts who lost
legs, first responders and the father of 8-year-old Martin Richard,
the youngest person to die in the attack.
Despite his lawyers' admission of responsibility, Tsarnaev has not
changed his plea from not guilty. In the first weeks of the trial,
prosecutors say evidence will focus on the ethnic Chechen's actions
leading up to the bombing and in the four chaotic days that
followed, before he was found hiding in a drydocked boat at the end
of a long manhunt.
U.S. District Judge George O'Toole has worked to keep both defense
and prosecution attorneys focused on direct evidence of Tsarnaev's
guilt, leaving the question of how his responsibility compared with
his brother's until the trial's sentencing phase.
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The trial moved along at a quicker than expected pace for its first
two days as defense attorneys declined to cross-examine all but one
of the witnesses who testified.
The bombing killed restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, and
graduate student Lingzi Lu, 23, as well as Martin. Massachusetts
Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, 27, was fatally
shot three days later.
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Tom Brown)
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