A Boston jury made its decision today on the fate of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, voting to execute the 21-year-old by lethal injection. 

 

The verdict was read by the same jury who convicted Tsarnaev on each of the 30 criminal counts against him on April 8th, which included the plot, carrying out, and aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing which took the lives of Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, Martin Richard, and Sean Collier. Collier was killed three days after the initial attacks on April 18th 2013 in his police car. 

 

Tsarnaev’s lawyers had argued that their client should not be sentenced to death because he had been forced into radicalism by his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, mastermind behind the attacks.

 

The jury, however, did not agree, siding with the prosecution which argued that the youngest Tsarnaev was more than willing to help carry out his brother’s plot. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Mellin argued that Tsarnaev “killed to make a political statement.” 

 

A long appeals process surely awaits Tsarnaev, which could take years before he is ultimately put to death.

 

Information from a NBC News article was used in this report.