Lawyers for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rested their case in his federal death penalty trial Tuesday after presenting testimony intended to show his late older brother was the mastermind of the 2013 terror attack.
The defense admitted during opening statements that Tsarnaev participated in the bombings. But the lawyer representing Tsarnaev said his client was a troubled 19-year-old who had fallen under the influence of his radicalized 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, who died following a shootout with police days after the bombings.
Closing arguments are scheduled for April 6. The jury is expected to begin deliberations the same day.
The defense has made it clear from the beginning of the trial that its strategy is not to win an acquittal for Tsarnaev, now 21, but to save him from the death penalty. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the marathon’s finish line April 15, 2013.
If the jury convicts Tsarnaev, as expected, it will then be asked to decide whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.
In the brief testimony it presented, the defense called four witnesses, including ananalyst who showed that Tsarnaev was at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth when his brother purchased components of the two bombs used in the 2013 attack, including pressure cookers and BBs.
On Tuesday, FBI fingerprint expert Elaina Graff examiner testified that Tsarnaev’s fingerprints weren’t found on any of the marathon bomb components, though his brother’s were.
She said prints belonging to both brothers were found on another, unexploded bomb recovered from the scene of a gun battle with police days after the marathon attack.
Under cross-examination, Graff said it can be difficult to find fingerprints at bombing sites. “Due to the extreme temperature and force in an explosion, it is not unusual to not find fingerprints on items,” she said.
Also testifying for the defense Tuesday was a computer expert who said Tsarnaev’s brother conducted Internet searches on bomb components in the weeks before the attack.
Mark Spencer, president of a digital forensics company, said search terms on the brother’s laptop included “detonators,” ”transmitter and receiver” and “fireworks firing system.” He said Tsarnaev’s laptop showed his computer activity focused heavily on Facebook and a Russian version of Facebook.
Tsarnaev’s lawyer also told jurors in opening statements that it was Tsarnaev’s brother who shot and killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier three days after the bombings.
Prosecutors rested their case Monday after calling more than 90 witnesses over 15 days of testimony, including bombing survivors who described losing limbs in the attack.
Jurors saw gruesome autopsy photos of the three killed: 8-year-old Martin Richard, a Boston boy who had gone to the marathon with his family; 23-year-old Lingzi Lu, a graduate student from China who was studying at Boston University; and Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager.
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