Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Guilty On all 30 Counts in Marathon Bombing, Faces Death Penalty

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty Wednesday of all 30 federal counts associated with the Boston Marathon bombings, and now a federal jury must determine whether he should be executed for detonating two shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon finish line.

A jury of seven women and five men returned the guilty verdict in a Boston courtroom as Tsarnaev, 21, kept his head bowed and hands clasped in front of him, showing no emotion.

The jury deliberated over the fate of the former college student for almost 12 hours, though the guilty verdict was largely a formality because the defense admitted his guilt.

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In the meantime, defense attorneys likely will be scrambling to find character witnesses to help them make their case that Tsarnaev was a wayward youth led astray by the plotting of his more sinister brother, Tamerlan, said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University’s security studies program.

“Life isn’t, unfortunately, a choose-your-own-adventure book where you can flip back and see what would have happened if you make a different choice,” said Mr. Gartenstein-Ross.

It was “an atrocious terrorist attack designed to inflict maximum bodily harm on innocent people,” Mr. Gartenstein-Ross said.

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