Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now a convicted murderer.
A Boston jury convicted him of all counts of first-degree murder in the April 15, 2013 bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
The U.S. Justice Department will seek the death penalty once the sentencing phase of the trial begins next week.
Based on what I understand occurred in the courtroom during the trial, the young killer is likely to be put down.
He didn’t show remorse. He didn’t exhibit any emotion. He didn’t even flinch, blink or look away when prosecutors produced graphic autopsy photographs of the three people killed in the blast; meanwhile, the jurors wept as they looked at the pictures.
What does that say about Tsarnaev? To me, it says he carried out a premeditated attack against innocent victims to prove some political point. The last person to be executed by the federal government, Timothy McVeigh, did the same thing when he detonated the truck bomb in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City nearly 20 years ago this month.
I’ve noted already my opposition to capital punishment. Tsarnaev’s cold response is testing that opposition to the max.
Although I oppose this punishment on principle, I won’t grieve if the jury sends this young man to his death.