7.Opening Statement — Prosecution

MS. PELLEGRINI: Unbearable, indescribable, inexcusable and senseless. All of those words have been used to describe the murders committed by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Yes, the deaths of Krystle Campbell, of Lingzi Lu, of Martin Richard and of Officer Sean Collier have been all of those things for their families and for their friends.

But don't let those descriptions make you think that you'll never really understand what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did to those victims and don't think that you won't know the full impact of his crimes, or that you won't be able to comprehend what those murders did to their families, their friends and their colleagues. You will know the story of those four families.

The deaths committed by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were deliberate, intentional and cruel. You know how Krystle, Lingzi, Martin and Sean died. Now you need to know how they lived. You need to know and understand why their lives mattered. You will begin to know Krystle Campbell and understand what it meant to lose the young woman that her father, Bill Campbell, nicknamed "Princess." You'll hear more about Lingzi, and you will understand what it meant to lose the young woman that her father, Jun Lu, remembered as a jolly girl.

You'll see Martin Richard who so resembles his dad, and see him in photos that will remind you of what an eight-year-old boy's life is like. Should be like. And you will know Sean Collier, the officer who inspired these words spoken to those who mourned him: "Live long, like he would. Big hearts, big smiles, big service. All love."

These young women, this young man and this little boy, all of them were loved and they loved in return. This is how we should know them, because they weren't always just the victims of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Before he murdered them in some of the cruellest ways imaginable, they were sons, they were daughters, they were grandchildren, they were brothers and they were sisters. And all of them had rich and fulfilling lives even at their young age.

But now these beautiful faces are memories and memorials. They're symbols, even, of loss, when all their families would want is to have them back one more time to be their son, their daughter, their best friend. When all they want is to have them come home one more time. For Lingzi, that would mean home to China, as she's pictured here, so that her parents could tell her that they kept their promise, they kept her beloved music collection safe when she left China to travel halfway around the world to come to Boston to study.

One more time just to see them laugh and joke, like Krystle here celebrating after a wedding that she had successfully planned and pulled off on Spectacle Island. Just to watch them smile proudly, like Sean here at a family wedding. And just to see Martin decked out in green beads one more time for one more St. Patrick's Day.

Their families had every right to expect they would live out their lives and realize the potential of these young lives, but Dzhokhar Tsarnaev took them all away, in the most painful and brutal ways possible. They were all beautiful, and they're all now gone.

And there are others who, while they survived, found their lives dramatically, irrevocably changed in an instant by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: Jessica Kensky, Roseann Sdoia, Karen McWatters, Jeff Bauman, Rebekah Gregory. They're just a few of the victim survivors. Roseann, Karen and Rebekah each suffered the amputation of one leg; Jessica and Jeff have now lost both legs. You heard and you saw what they went through, what they suffered through and the terrible injuries inflicted by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

And, yes, when they testified, they were brave, they were resilient and they were open. They faced you, as they still face life, with great humor and good grace. But now you need to know the full story of all of them, of all of the survivors. You need to know how close they came to death as a result of the actions of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; how close they came and others came, and how close others still might be.

The question of guilt has been answered, and the question of sentence remains. You have heard testimony and you've seen photos and videos; you've heard the graphic descriptions and the wrenching testimony of the victims and the witnesses. You needed to know all of that evidence because you needed to know what happened on Boylston Street, in Cambridge and in Watertown. The verdicts don't supply you the answer to the next question that you must answer, but the evidence will assist you. And you could consider everything that you have heard in the guilt phase and everything that you are about to hear in this phase; you'll just look at it in a slightly different way. Because now all of the evidence and all of the information will help to assist you in answering one more question. And we phrase the question as this: Why? Why? After weighing all of the aggravating factors and mitigating factors, why is the death penalty the appropriate and just sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

The answer, we suggest, will be found in the entire sum of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's own character and his own actions. Every gateway factor that the Court mentioned and every aggravating factor will be proven to you beyond a reasonable doubt. Why is the death penalty the appropriate and just sentence? Because Dzhokhar Tsarnaev planned and he plotted to kill. Because when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sauntered down Boylston Street and took a pressure cooker bomb into the crowds, he created a grave risk of death for every person within a radius of that bomb. And later he created that same risk for every officer and every person in the radius of the bombs that he threw down Laurel Street, and every officer in the range of the car that he gunned down Laurel Street.

Why? Because Dzhokhar Tsarnaev created grave risk of death for every single one of the 17 victims who had to undergo amputations, many undergoing multiple operations, some undergoing multiple amputations, all of them being put at risk and some still, I'd suggest.

Because in the course of four days he took the lives of these four young, beautiful people. Three died on the streets of Boston, killed by pressure cooker bombs that exploded with such lethal force that pieces of them were embedded in the concrete buildings across the street. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev murdered each one of them in a way that they had time to feel pain, they had time to be scared and frightened, but they had no time to say good-bye. And that is the very essence of terror.

Why? Because Dzhokhar Tsarnaev executed a police officer targeted simply because he was an officer and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wanted his gun, an officer who sat in his cruiser on that quiet Cambridge campus and died after he was shot between the eyes.

The ultimate question requires you to make a determination, but as the Court just instructed you, you cannot make that final determination until you have made certain gateway findings. So let's look at what you already know and what you will know.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was 19 and a half years old when he walked down Boylston Street, just three months shy of his 20th birthday. He carried a backpack stuffed with a heavy took time to build pressure cooker, itself lined with nails and BBs that would become embedded in the bodies of his victims. He carried a weapon of mass destruction; not simply a random and quick means, an opportunity to commit a crime. It took time to build the bombs. It took time and planning to get Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the bombs into his hands. It took planning and it took coordination to get him and the bombs to Boylston Street. And quite obviously, his detonation of the bomb seconds after the first blast was carefully coordinated and calculated. You saw the images of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on his phone at the Forum site. You saw the phone records.

As Dzhokhar Tsarnaev walked with his partner, his coconspirator, his brother, he could see what the Boston Marathon represented in those few blocks, and how could he not see or know the vulnerability of each and every one of those spectators? There he is, a 26.2-mile road race that culminates in the heart of Boston, surrounded -- the course surrounded by well-wishers, celebrants, avid fans and casual observers. The finish line just ahead beckoning thousands of runners. And people stood cheering and ringing bells and clapping and laughing.

And after Tamerlan Tsarnaev walked toward the finish line, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev stood alone at the site of the Forum. He stood alone, but he was in a crowd. His lethal bomb at his feet represented a grave risk of death and, of course, death for those who died. He stood, he looked, he called his brother and he acted. After both bombs exploded, three people lay dying, and many people were so badly injured that their limbs were already amputated or shortly would be. And among the deceased was a small eight-year-old boy. Three days later Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shot and killed a police officer. After the carjacking that followed that murder, he tried to murder police officers in Watertown. He threw bombs, and he was the one who drove the car directly at those same officers. Four deaths in four days.

In just that short retelling, you already have evidence of age: 18 years or older; intentional killing of four victims, because every death was intended. There was no mistake or accident about any one of these. And you have and will have evidence of the following factors: the death of individuals during the commission of other crimes; the grave risk of death to people other than the victims; the heinous, cruel and depraved method of committing these crimes; substantial planning and premeditation; multiple killings and a vulnerable victim.

You have that information, but there will be more. Keep asking the question: Why is the death penalty the appropriate and just sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Because the evidence has shown and will show that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev deliberately selected a glorious and famous international sporting event for its fame and for the vulnerability of its spectators; because he twisted the marathon into something cruel and ugly for his own purposes, and because he took the marathon and turned it into a political statement to bring attention to himself, to his own beliefs, and to others who would share those beliefs.

But the horror and the death of the victims, that told you what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did and how he did it, but that horror is now joined with the impact of the never-ending loss upon the families of the victims. Only when all of those facts come together will you know the full effect of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's acts upon the families left behind, and only then can you carefully weigh the factor of victim impact.

Your sentencing decision will be a consideration of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's character and his actions, and it is not an exercise in comparison. Each and every time you hear Tamerlan Tsarnaev's name or any other person's name, you can ask yourselves why. Why are you hearing that? Tamerlan Tsarnaev, he's an easy target. Easy target while he lived, certainly an easy target when he's dead. He's not a substitute for his brother.

But it's much more than that. Because ask yourselves if there's anything about Tamerlan Tsarnaev or any other person that will explain to you how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could take a bomb, leave it behind a row of children, walk away, down the street, and detonate it. Is there anything that will explain how he could walk away from that happy and crowded scene, look back over his shoulder, knowing that he just left death there to go off, and he kept on going?

You may hear about family dynamics, family history, family dysfunction. But many people -- millions of people, one would venture -- face troubles throughout their lives. Who among them murders a child with a bomb?

You may see photos of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at family gatherings, school events, dances, at camp, playing the drums. That might tell you he had the advantages of a good education at schools; that he led others, like those on his wrestling team; that he was taken care of, and that he was educated.

But nothing will explain his cruelty and his indifference. Nothing will, other than his own character. And everything you know and will know about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the crimes that he committed will reinforce he simply is callous and indifferent to human life. These personal characteristics are what set him apart, and it's his character that makes the death penalty appropriate and just.

It's not that hate and callous indifference to human life are anything new. Sadly, they're not. But neither are the notions of jihad or radicalization. Those didn't start with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and they certainly didn't start with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and it is tempting to look elsewhere when one's beliefs and actions are so fundamentally different than what you would expect from another human being. So when Shakespeare wrote that "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves," he was reminding us that we have to look inward. We have to look towards the person in whom the fault lies. No alignment of the heavens will explain or excuse Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The evidence presented and to be presented will show a person whose cruel character can be found in the way that he murdered and in his own reactions to those murders, his own beliefs, and his own motivations. It's the lines that he was so willing to cross that make him fundamentally different. And it may have been hard to imagine that an individual would have such feelings and then act upon them in such a way, but you no longer have to imagine. You've seen it.

If you want to understand Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and what he did, you don't have to look to the heavens for an answer. You can look for the man who walked alone down Boylston Street, knowing that his brother had taken up his own place at another location. You can look for the man who stood alone behind the Richard family for almost four minutes. You can look for the man who then walked off alone, leaving behind a bomb that would kill Lingzi and Martin; who, without his brother, got back to the UMass Dartmouth campus and three days later came back.

Look for the man who alone got the gun that killed Sean Collier; who alone went into the bank and used the debit card of a terrified carjacking victim to get money; and who drove alone down Laurel Street trying to mow down Watertown police officers; who escaped alone; and who then, alone with his own thoughts, wrote in his own words -- wrote and carved his manifesto into the inside of that boat on Franklin Street, declaring his beliefs and righteousness of his own actions.

All of that evidence, and that which will follow, will tell you that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was and is unrepentant, uncaring, and untouched by the havoc and the sorrow that he has created. Remember Dr. Levitt said a small number of people cross the line into radicalization. But in reality, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was willing to cross every line for personal glory and for reward. Kill innocents with a bomb: Done. Kill a police officer: Done. Kill a child: Done. All of those lines were crossed. They were erased. All those boundaries were shattered. It was done by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

You've seen the milk-buying video. You've seen the gym video. You've seen the Shell gas station video where he shops for snacks less than two hours after Officer Collier had been executed. And you know he was in Officer Collier's car. And he shops while a terrified carjacking victim sits outside.

You've also seen the Bank of America video. And while it hasn't received the attention of the others, it may be just as telling. Dun Meng has been carjacked. He's been forced to give up his car and his PIN number. You watch Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as he enters that bank. He calmly examines the card in his hand. During the course of the next three minutes, he first punches in the number, and it's wrong. Does he panic? Does he run outside and seek the assistance of his brother? No. He calmly reenters that number. He gets into the account, and he steals money. And then, as if he had all the time in the world, he tries to get more money.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was as successful as only he and Inspire magazine could have hoped. "Successful means," Inspire magazine wrote, "are through explosive devices and sacrificing souls." These -- these are the souls that he sacrificed.

You're considering Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's character. And you're free to ask, does it really matter who came first in the long line of radicalization? As I said, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wasn't the first to radicalize. Neither was Tamerlan. And whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was radicalized by his brother, by Anwar al-Awlaki, by some Internet lecture, by a song, or by a terrorist-to-go magazine, the origin and the lineage of terrorism don't matter. What matters are his beliefs in terrorism, his actions of terror, and the consequences of his actions upon others.

He believed, because terrorism sang to him, and then he acted. He killed. Nothing was forced upon him. He simply shared. He shared his belief in terrorism, and he shared it with his brother and others. These people, they were the enemy to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He knew they were innocents. He even called them that. But it didn't stop him from murdering them. Two young women and a young man that won't ever reach the age of 30. And a little boy who will never reach the third grade. This will be their story. The impact that each of these young people had in their lives and the impact of their death far exceeds the scant number of years of life that they were given.

You know, some milestones in life are easy to spot, easy to prepare yourself for: birthdays and anniversaries, graduations. And then there are the little things: teaching your child how to ride a bike, drive a car, taking him to dancing lessons or watching him go off to the prom, going to ball games with him or watching them play baseball, going to visit the grandparents or just hiking a trail.

But it's the very smallest of details woven together that make up a life, and that's where grief resides. It's every minute of every day, grief and loss, and it is inescapable. It's the laugh that no one will ever hear again. It's the talented fingers that won't ever touch the keyboard again. It's the selfies that won't be shared or laughed over. It's the phone calls and texts that won't be sent or received. It's even the little irritations of life. Who drives you crazy when they leave their sports equipment in the hallway? Who doesn't put away the laundry? Who ate the last piece of cake?

Things that make you laugh and make you cry at the same time. And even in moments of happiness, sadness will remain. And the thoughts of the future will bring no peace. Every time someone thinks, Oh, he really would have enjoyed that game. Or, Look at that, she would have looked great in that dress. Or, Remember that grandpa was so proud of him? It will come with a wrenching ache.

All of this loss is senseless, and it will remain so because there's no sense to be made of it. And these deaths are inexplicable because there are no explanations. And these crimes are inexcusable because there should be no excuses.

The Boston-born poet and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote, "The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be." Destiny: It's the sum of one's decisions and actions and beliefs. It's as personal and individual as a fingerprint. And for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, his decisions and his actions and his beliefs made up who he was and who he is. His destiny was determined by him, and he was determined and destined to be America's worst nightmare.

You can keep your hearts and minds open, and you'll find a man whose heart was full of rage and whose mind was dead set on the path that he took.

On July 10th, 2013, almost three months after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had murdered Krystle Marie Campbell, Lingzi Lu, Martin Richard, and Officer Sean Collier, he was here in this courthouse. He knew the United States had charged him for his crimes. In the room that he was in, there was a video camera. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was alone. There was no brother with him. And once more, just as he had done with the boat on Franklin Street, he had one more message to send.

MS. PELLEGRINI: This should be on the screens.

This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, unconcerned, unrepentant, and unchanged. Without remorse, he remains untouched by the grief and the loss that he caused. And without assistance, he remains the unrepentant killer that he is. It is because of who Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is that the United States will return and ask you to find that the just and appropriate sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is death.

Thank you.

MR. MELLIN: Thank you, your Honor.

Your Honor, the United States calls Celeste Corcoran.