What jury will consider in Boston bombing?
Jurors have heard all the testimony in the Boston Marathon bombing trial. The defense rested its case Tuesday after calling just four witnesses over two days.
"I was, frankly, surprised that they called any because they had admitted that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a participant in these terrorist bombings," CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman said. "What [the defense witnesses] were called were evidence gatherers. People who got cell phone records, people who looked at the computers, people who looked at fingerprints just to show again it's Tamerlan, Tamerlan, Tamerlan, the older brother."
The defense made it clear that their goal was to convince the jury that Tsarnaev was less culpable than Tamerlan, saying he had been under the influence of his radicalized brother, and does not deserve the death penalty.
Klieman said there will be mitigating factors for the jury to consider.
"We have his age. He's only 19. We have the fact that he had no prior criminal record. And, of course, in that penalty phase, which will be the most intriguing of all, what we have is all about the older brother. Did he really influence, really overwhelm the will of his younger follower?" Klieman said.
The prosecutors rested their case with photos and testimony centering around the gruesome autopsy of 8-year-old Martin Richards, in which a witness said every part of the boy's body was damaged after the explosion.
"This boy was 68 pounds. Even reading the testimony would bring a tear to the eye of any person with a soul," Klieman said.
Now, the jury has several days off, as closing arguments and jury deliberations will get under way next week.
"We'll never know if people really don't discuss it, but this is an awfully long time, even if the result of guilt is certain," Klieman said. "And one of the things the judge said, which I thought was a bit amusing in a bit of all of this tragedy and carnage, is he told them not even to discuss it in the mirror."