REPOST: Boston Bombing Prosecutors Will Seek Death Penalty

If convicted, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, primary suspect on Boston marathon bombing last year, may face the death penalty. Continue reading here:

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U.S. prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev if he’s convicted of the bombing at last year’s BostonMarathon that killed three people and injured 260, the first deadly terrorist attack in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.

The decision by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was announced yesterday by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz in Boston. Ortiz said Tsarnaev’s intentional involvement in the “especially heinous” attack, his lack of remorse and his betrayal of the U.S. justified a death sentence.

“The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision,” Holder said in a statement. There have been only three federal executions since the penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1970s, the most prominent of which was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Federal cases that can carry a capital sentence are reviewed by the attorney general, who decides whether the government should seek a post-conviction penalty phase where a jury decides whether to impose death. Holder’s decision was reached after hearing arguments from Tsarnaev’s defense team.

Tsarnaev, a 20-year-old former college student, pleaded not guilty in July to 30 counts, including allegations he killed a university police officer in the days after the bomb attack. The office of the federal public defender in Boston declined to comment on the death-penalty decision. The government may set aside capital punishment if a defendant agrees to a plea bargain, often one with a sentence of life without parole.

Death Poll

A Boston Globe poll in September found that a third of city residents backed the death penalty for Tsarnaev, while 57 percent supported a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said that while he supported the process used by Holder to make his decision, he remains opposed to capital punishment.

“As state representative, I voted against the death penalty. If I was asked to vote on that today, I would vote the same way,” Walsh said at a press conference at city hall yesterday. “We are a city full of heart and courage, and we stand together as one Boston in the face of evil and hatred.”

A Russian immigrant and ethnic Chechen who is now a U.S. citizen, Tsarnaev was inspired by al-Qaeda and motivated by the U.S. military’s killing of Muslim civilians, the government claimed.

He’s charged with leaving homemade bombs in crowds near the marathon’s finish line on April 15. His older brother, who allegedly helped mastermind the plot, was killed after a shootout with police in an ensuing manhunt.

The explosions killed three people: Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, Lu Lingzi, 23, and Martin Richard, 8.

‘Hardly Surprising’

“It is hardly surprising that the government will be seeking the death penalty,” said Mark Pearlstein, a former prosecutor in Boston who’s now a lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery LLP. “In doing so, the legal proceedings will be greatly complicated and will take much longer to complete.”

Massachusetts doesn’t have a death penalty. Executions under U.S. statute take place by lethal injection at the death chamber at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Tsarnaev is being held in a federal medical facility in Ayer, Massachusetts. He faces a Feb. 28 deadline to decide whether to seek to move the trial out of Boston.

“Eric Holder chose to speak for the nation as a whole, rather than for just Boston or Massachusetts,” said Daniel Filler, a professor at Drexel University School of Law in Philadelphia. “Massachusetts residents, the jury, will make the final call about imposing death,” said Filler, who created a capital defense clinic while at the University of Alabama.

Officer Shot

In addition to the bombing deaths, Tsarnaev is charged with killing Sean Collier, a police officer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Collier’s shooting at point-blank range on the evening of April 18 set off an overnight manhunt that led to Tsarnaev’s capture and the death of his brother, Tamerlan, 26.

Holder’s decision drew an objection from Amnesty International USA.

“Capital punishment contributes to a cycle of violence and it is outrageous that as the world moves away from the death penalty, the U.S. federal government has decided to seek a death sentence,” Steven Hawkins, executive director of the human rights group, said in an e-mail.

Three days after the bombing, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released pictures of the brothers taken near the scene of the blasts, before authorities had identified them.

Three of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s friends recognized him, prosecutors said. They were later charged with conspiring to obstruct a federal probe into the attack by hiding or destroying evidence. All three have pleaded not guilty and face trial in June.

‘Especially Heinous’

Tsarnaev “committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner,” Ortiz said in a filing yesterday in federal court in Boston.

She listed aggravating factors to back the call for a death sentence, including the planning that went into the attack and the selection of an “iconic event” known to draw large crowds.

Additional factors were the multiple killings, the death of a child, Tsarnaev’s statements encouraging others to commit acts of terrorism and his participation in a shootout with police on April 19, according to the filing.

Tsarnaev received asylum from the U.S. and enjoyed the freedom of being a citizen, Ortiz said. He “betrayed his allegiance to the United States by killing and maiming people,” she said.

The case is U.S. v. Tsarnaev, 13-cr-10200, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).

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REPOST: FBI will try to rebuild Boston bombs

US law enforcement sources told CNN news the materials used in the Boston bombing were made from pressure cookers hidden in backpacks. Read the article below:  

(CNN) -- Investigators said Tuesday they'll attempt to reconstruct the bombs that turned the Boston Marathon's finish line into a bloody nightmare and asked the public for help finding who planted them.

Federal law enforcement sources told CNN the devices were made from pressure cookers and hidden in backpacks.

At a news conference Tuesday evening, the FBI agent leading the search said fragments of nails, BBs and scraps of black nylon -- possibly from a backpack -- are being handed over to the bureau's laboratory "for a complete and thorough analysis."

Rick DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, also asked people to report anyone who talked about targeting Monday's race or showed interest in explosives. He urged anyone who might have heard the sounds of explosions in remote areas -- possibly by someone testing a bomb -- or saw someone carrying "an unusually heavy, dark-colored bag" around Monday to come forward.

"Someone knows who did this," DesLauriers said. "Cooperation from the community will play a crucial role in this investigation."

The U.S. government has warned federal agencies in the past that pressure cookers -- airtight pots used to quickly cook or preserve foods -- have been packed with explosives and shrapnel and detonated with blasting camps. A law enforcement official said Monday's bombs were likely detonated by timers.

The pieces recovered so far suggest the devices, which were identical, could carry 6 liters of liquid apiece, a Boston law enforcement source said. The parts found include a partial circuit board, which would be used to detonate a device.

"Boston will overcome," mayor vows

Pressure cooker bombs can be "very effective," terrorism expert Jeff Beatty told CNN. Taliban and al Qaeda militants "use them to make their IEDs," he said.

"That doesn't mean it was the Taliban -- other people can read about this," said Beatty, who served in the FBI, CIA and the military's Delta Force.

But there has been no claim of responsibility, DesLauriers said: "The range of suspects and motives remains wide open." And so far, investigators have found no foreign or al Qaeda connection to the bombings, a U.S. official told CNN.

In Washington, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters that some of the facts suggest the carnage had its roots in American soil.

"There are a lot of things that are surrounding this that would give an indication that it may have been a domestic terrorist, but that just can't be assumed," Chambliss said.

Napolitano: No signs of 'broad plot'

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the bombings don't appear to be harbingers of "a broader plot." But she urged Americans "to remain vigilant and immediately report any signs of suspicious activity to local law enforcement officials."

And members of Congress who were briefed by Obama administration officials on told reporters that the field of possible suspects remains wide open.

"We really don't know if it's a foreign or domestic threat," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Commitee. "We don't know whether this was a homegrown terrorist or part of a wider conspiracy."

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper held closed-door talks with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. Chambliss,R-Georgia, told reporters afterward that "there's not a whole lot of update to give."

What we know about the bombings so far

"This is a very fluid investigation. The FBI's in the lead, and I personally know the special agent in charge. He's one of the best," Chambliss said.

Late Monday, authorities searched the apartment of a young Saudi man who was among the wounded at the race. He was found to have no connection to the attack.

"He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time," the U.S. official said.

A Saudi woman, a medical student who was also injured in the blast, has also been interviewed by investigators, according to a law enforcement source.

Boston's 'most complex crime scene' ever

Investigators are combing through shreds of evidence from what Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis called "the most complex crime scene that we've dealt with in the history of our department." The cordoned off area has been reduced from 15 blocks to 12 and will be reduced further in coming days, he said.

Even the smallest bits of debris could help indicate the bombs' "signature," said a federal law enforcement official who works in the intelligence community.

The explosives themselves were small, and initial tests showed no C-4 or other high-grade explosive material -- suggesting the packages used in the attack were crude devices, a federal law enforcement official in the intelligence community said.

How you can help

Based on the bombs' effects, the devices could have been small enough to be concealed in small bags or boxes, a law enforcement official said. The smoke was consistent with a "low-velocity improvised explosive mixture, perhaps flash powder or sugar chlorate mixture," the official said.

Two photos obtained by CNN affiliate WHDH might raise more questions. The first shows a light-colored bag sitting on the ground next to a mailbox. The second -- of the same spot -- shows a blast seemingly where that bag sat, with the mailbox still upright. Investigators have not commented on these photos, which WHDH reports it has shared with authorities.

Parts of the explosive devices that authorities have recovered will be analyzed at an FBI facility in Quantico, Virginia. One aim is to better understand how they worked; another is to look for 

"identification clues" such as fingerprints, DNA or serial numbers to help track who planted them, the Boston law enforcement source said.

Authorities haven't given any timetable as to when they expect significantly new details. But the FBI's DesLauriers vowed Tuesday that the more than 1,000 law enforcement officers from more than 30 agencies will get results, even if they have to go "to the ends of the Earth" to get them.

"Our mission is clear: to bring to justice those responsible," the FBI official said. "The American public wants answers. The citizens of the city of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts want and deserve answers."

Videos to be examined

Authorities have begun to search through huge amounts of video and images from surveillance cameras in the area near the attack. So far, no footage has been spotted showing someone placing the bombs, a law enforcement source said.

Authorities have asked anyone with images from any part of the marathon to share them with police.

"People don't know that they were witnesses -- that they might actually have evidence in their phones or in their cameras," Juliette Kayyem, President Obama's former assistant secretary for homeland security, said on CNN's "Starting Point."

Davis vowed authorities will sift "through every frame of every video."

The FBI is likely issuing subpoenas for records from cell towers in the area to isolate and trace calls from around Copley Square at the time of the blasts, according to a federal law enforcement official.

Doctors believe bombs contained sharp objects

Two doctors overseeing treatment of the injured believe the explosive devices contained nails or similar objects.

Many patients have severe wounds "related to the blast effect of the bomb as well as small metallic fragments that entered their body," including "pellets" and "nail-like objects," said Dr. George Velmahos, head of trauma care at Massachusetts General Hospital.

A variety of sharp objects were found inside the patients' bodies, he said, adding that the bombs probably contained multiple metallic fragments.

Asked whether what was found in the patients' bodies could have come from nearby objects that exploded in the blast, Velmahos said he believes the materials were likely part of the explosive devices.

Doctors remove ball bearings from victims

Ron Walls, chair of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said most patients there were wounded by "ordinary debris." But three were injured by "perfectly round objects" that were "very uniform, consistent, metallic," he said. And another patient had more than 12 carpenter-type nails.

"There is no question some of these objects were implanted in the device for the purpose of being exploded forward," Wall said.

No unexploded bombs

Suspicious packages that were detonated out of precaution after the bombings turned out not to be explosive devices after all.

After the blasts Monday, some officials reported that explosive devices that failed to go off were found.

But investigators said Tuesday the only bombs were the two that exploded at the marathon.

The intelligence community is poring through all threat reporting for any clues, U.S. counterterrorism officials told CNN.

That includes any claims made on jihadist websites. Nothing is being dismissed this early on, the officials said.

A law enforcement official in Boston said investigators "have a number of active leads and some good early progress in the forensics analysis."

There were no credible threats ahead of the race, a state government official said.

Boston officials who worked quickly Monday to clear the crime scene and divert thousands of runners half a mile away should get an award, said Kayyem, who also served as homeland security adviser to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

The move minimized chaos and "preserved the crime scene, which is going to be key for the FBI investigation. Those are lessons learned out of 9/11."

Open events are hard to secure, Kayyem said. "People say, 'Oh, how could this happen again?...' The better way to look at it, I think, is: Did we respond better? I think the answer is yes."

Atty. Evan Granowitz specializes on class action litigation and insurance coverage, among others. Visit this Facebook page to know more of his practice.