Boston bomber Tsarnaev gets death for 2013 marathon massacre

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev gestures towards a surveillance camera in his holding cell in this 2013 surveillance image released by the U.S. Justice department. REUTERS/USDOJ


Dzhokhar Tsarnaev gestures towards a surveillance camera in his holding cell in this 2013 surveillance image released by the U.S. Justice department. REUTERS/USDOJ

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was today sentenced by a jury to death for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon attack that killed three people and injured 264.

The jury took 15 hours to reach a decision. Tsarnaev, 21, will receive death by lethal injection. The jury chose this over its only other option: life in prison without possibility of release.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch says of the sentencing, “The ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment.”

Judy Clarke (R) and David Brock, defense attorneys for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, walk away from the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts May 15, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder


Judy Clarke (R) and David Brock, defense attorneys for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, walk away from the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts May 15, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

The same panel last month found the ethnic Chechen guilty of placing a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the race's crowded finish line on April 15, 2013, as well as fatally shooting a policeman. The bombing was one of the highest-profile attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

During 10 weeks of testimony, the jury heard from about 150 witnesses, including people whose legs were torn off by the shrapnel-filled bombs. William Richard, the father of bombing victim Martin Richard, described the gut-wrenching decision to leave his 8-year-old son to die of his wounds so that he could save the life of his daughter, Jane, who lost a leg but survived.

Prosecutors described Tsarnaev as an adherent of al Qaeda's militant Islamist views who carried out the attack as an act of retribution for U.S. military campaigns in Muslim-dominated countries.

Boston bomber Tsarnaev sentenced to death for 2013 attack” [reuters]

A still image from surveillance video shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on March 11, 2015. REUTERS/U.S. Attorney's Office


A still image from surveillance video shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on March 11, 2015. REUTERS/U.S. Attorney's Office

Jim Armstrong, a reporter at Boston's CBS affiliate WBZ, has been live-tweeting the federal trial. Here were his tweets from the courtroom at the moment the sentencing was announced.