BOSTON (
MyFoxBoston.com) - After calling four witnesses, two of them FBI employees, the legal team representing admitted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev finished presenting its case in the guilt phase of this closely watched trial.
Tsarnaev is facing the death penalty if he is convicted of his crimes.
In opening statements at the beginning of the trial, defense attorney Judy Clarke conceded Tsarnaev's guilt but told the jurors they should spare Dzhokhar's life because it was his older brother Tamerlan who radicalized his younger brother.
In court Tuesday, the defense called its own forensic computer expert, Mark Spencer. He testified that suspicious Internet searches in the weeks before the Marathon attacks were tied to Tamerlan's laptop, and not Dzhokhar's.
On March 4, 2013, the computer searched Ruger P95. On April 4, 2013, he searched "fireworks firing system," and "detonator," and on April 6 and 7, "transmitter and receiver." Just days before the attack, on April 10 and 11, he searched the phrases "NH gun stores," "NH gun stores Salem," and "Boston Marathon."
In cross examination, the government pointed out that without a video camera, there is no way to tell who was doing the searches on Tamerlan's computer.
And FBI fingerprint analyst Elaina Graff, a witness who the defense called to testify, said that Tamerlan's fingerprints, not Dzhokhar's were found on bomb-making tools in the Tsarnaev Cambridge apartment..
Additonally, she said, Dzhokar's fingerprints were not found at the crime scenes on Boylston Street, but Tamerlan's were. Tamerlan's prints were identified on pieces of cardboard inside the first pressure cooker bomb, and on a piece of paper inside a backpack.
Through cross-examination, however, the government made the point that Tamerlan's prints should be in his own Cambridge apartment, and that the force of the blasts of the pressure cooker bombs may have obliterated Dzhokhar's prints.
Closing arguments are expected next Monday, April 7, and then jurors will begin deliberating on whether to find Tsarnaev guilty or not.
(AP Photo/Jane Flavell Collins)
