Three spectators died, their bodies charred and shredded by the bombs planted near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. But it has always come back to the little boy.
The death of Martin Richard, who was 8 years old and weighed less than 70 pounds, is one of the things that has made this long and gruesome case so difficult for everyone in the courtroom to witness.
A year before he died, Martin made a poster with the words “Peace” and “no more hurting people” for a school project. He was leaning against a barricade with a group of children when he was literally torn apart by the homemade pressure cooker bomb that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev placed less than 4 feet behind him. He took the full brunt of the blast.
As the penalty phase of Tsarnaev’s trial goes to the jury, his lawyers are asking a judge to strike Martin’s death and its impact on his family from the factors jurors will consider in deciding whether he deserves the death penalty.
On Wednesday, U.S. Judge George O’Toole gave the jury an instruction regarding the age and death of Martin. Although he did not announce a ruling in court, the fact O’Toole gave the instruction would indicate the defense bid to exclude it failed.
An aggravating factor
Martin’s parents asked prosecutors to take the death penalty off the table, and they did not participate in the penalty phase of the trial. They said in an essay published in the Boston Globe that a death sentence would result in appeals for years to come that would force them to relive the day Martin died and his sister, Jane, lost a leg — “the most painful day of our lives.”
Only after Tsarnaev is locked away and forgotten can they begin to “rebuild our lives and our family,” the Martins wrote.
Family members of the other victims — Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu and Sean Collier — all gave powerful victim impact testimony during the penalty phase, describing photos that showed young, vital people fully engaged in their lives.
But in the case of Martin Richard, the defense argued, “The government called no witnesses and offered no evidence” concerning the impact of his death on his family. And the death penalty can’t imposed, the defense argued, “based solely on the jurors’ inevitably strong feelings of sympathy and grief for a young murder victim or for his family.”
Because he was small and especially vulnerable to the effects of the blast, the boy’s death is a compelling aggravating factor supporting the death penalty in this case.
Heartbreaking evidence
Defense attorney Miriam Conrad carefully worded her legal argument so as not to appear insensitive.
“In making this motion, the defendant acknowledges that in a sense, the government’s allegation is self-evidently true — true for this young victim, for every person who is murdered, and for every grieving family member that murder leaves behind,” Tsarnaev’s lawyers acknowledged.
Prosecutors countered that they presented plenty of evidence during the earlier guilt phase of the trial. Some of that evidence was heartbreaking. They summarized the testimony of the boy’s father, Bill Richard:
“A photo was entered into evidence showing the family watching the Marathon from the location of the ice cream shop,” prosecutors said in their legal papers. “Bill Richard testified that to this day he can remember the flavor of ice cream his son had.”
After the bomb went off, knocking him into the street, Bill Richard “had to make the wrenching decision to either leave and get medical care for Jane, whose leg was blown off, or stay with Denise and Martin.”
The boys’ father testified that he could see his son’s body was “severely damaged” and knew “there was no chance that Martin would survive.”
Prosecutors also quoted another blast victim, Steven Woolfenden, who testified he could hear Denise Richard pleading with her injured son, “Please, Martin, please.”
“The injuries to Martin covered his entire body and were described as extraordinarily painful,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadine Pellegrini wrote.
Jane Richard, who was 6, was placed in a medically-induced coma, Pellegrini said. Each time she awoke, she asked where her brother was and her parents would have to tell her, yet again, that Martin had died.
Pellegrini argued that prosecutors had presented plenty of evidence to prove that “Martin Richard was a beloved son and brother whose murder was witnessed by his family members and necessarily caused grievous harm and continuing grief.”
Things not to consider
In other legal papers, defense attorneys asked judge O’Toole to caution jurors not to consider Tsarnaev’s flat courtroom demeanor or the fact he did not testify. They also asked the judge to instruct jurors that if they could not unanimously agree on a death sentence, Tsarnaev will automatically receive a sentence of life in prison.
Tsarnaev, who is 21, was convicted in April of 30 counts; 17 of them carry a possible death sentence. He was found guilty of conspiring and detonating weapons of mass destruction at a public event as an act of terrorism resulting in death.