Deliberations in the trial of the Boston Marathon bomber began on Wednesday, and a verdict may be reached "any day now," NBC News reports.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 criminal counts for the attacks last month. Seventeen of those counts carry the death penalty and the only way for him to avoid it is if the jury cannot unanimously agree on it for all of those counts. As NBC News acknowledged, "all it takes is one juror to hold out" on each of those 17 charges and Tsarnaev will be sent to prison for life without parole rather than put on death row.
The closing arguments included the prosecution calling Tsarnaev a "terrorist" and the defense arguing that capital punishment for the admitted bomber, who is 21 years old, is not justified.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Mellin noted during the closing arguments that Tsarnaev chose the Boston Marathon as the site of the attacks for a reason and has not ever shown remorse, according to NBC News:
"The arguments began with Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Mellin, who argued that Tsarnaev chose a huge public event held on a holiday marking the Revolutionary War, to make a political statement.
"Mellin reminded the jury of surveillance video that captured Tsarnaev placing a bomb in a finish line crowd on April 15, 2013, and waiting a couple minutes before signaling to his brother and co-conspirator, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to proceed.
"He reminded them of footage that showed Tsarnaev buying a half-gallon of milk after the bombing.
"'The defense will ask you to value the defendant's life but he didn't value the life of other people,' Mellin said, sharing photos of mutilated victims. 'His actions have earned him a sentence of death.'"
Mellin went on to chronicle what Tsarnaev did in the hours following the bombing, highlighting the death of Sean Collier, an MIT security officer, and the manhunt that ensued and ultimately ended in Watertown, Mass.
"Who is capable of showing so little remorse? Only a terrorist," Mellin said.
After Sister Helen Prejean testified to spare Tsarnaev of the death penalty on the defense's behalf, his lead lawyer, Judy Clarke, closed by saying Tamerlan, Dzhokhar's older brother who died hours after the bombing, was the mastermind of the attack. Its a formula the defense used all trial.
"If not for Tamerlan, this wouldn't have happened. Dzhokhar would never have done this but for Tamerlan," Clarke said. "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is not the worst of the worst. And the death penalty is for the worst of the worst."
