Jurors have found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty on all counts related to the Boston Marathon bombings. Dzhokhar carried out the attacks with his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev on April 15, 2013, killing three people and injuring 264 others. Tamerlan died resisting police on April 19.
The jury will now move into the penalty phase of the trial, in which the primary question will be whether or not to assign Tsarnaev the death penalty. Seventeen of Tsarnaev's 30 counts are legally punishable by death. CNN reports:
The defense disputes little about what happened and instead focused on why it happened. Lead defense attorney Judy Clarke all but conceded that Tsarnaev is guilty, and is focusing instead on persuading jurors to spare him from the death penalty in the trial's next phase. ...
She asked jurors to keep their minds open to what is to come -- a case based heavily on the Tsarnaev family's troubled history and the control and influence Tamerlan Tsarnaev held over his younger brother. Tamerlan was the mastermind of the bomb plot, Clarke said. ...
But prosecutors insisted the brothers were "partners in crime," working together to punish Americans for what they perceived as crimes against Muslims.
A date for the penalty phase of the trial has not yet been set.
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