Death penalty is a type of capital punishment by execution. It involves putting the condemned offender to death usually by hanging, electrocution and more recently, by lethal injection. The death penalty may be given as a result of murder offense.
U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. ordered on Wednesday that Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should stand trial on November 3, "rejecting defense lawyers' arguments that they need nearly a year long that to shift through thousands of pieces of evidence and interview witnesses around the globe as they prepare for the complex death penalty case," The Boston Globe reported.
Postponing the case further is in the interest of most defense lawyers since it delays judgment day.
"The defense is motivated by two things, the desire to keep the defendant alive as long as possible and the desire to be prepared. In a case like this, where guilt or innocence is the least " said Robert Sheketoff, a Boston criminal defense attorney, as reported by The Boston Globe.
"In a case like this, where guilt or innocence is the least of your problems, what is your hurry to get to a conclusion?", added Sheketoff.
Tsarnaev's trial concerns charges that he and his brother, Tamerlan, built and planted two pressure-cooker bombs, which killed three people and injured at least 260 others at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Tsarnaev, who faces a 30-count indictment, is also charged with killing an MIT campus police officer in Cambridge while trying to flee the area. His brother was killed in a confrontation with police in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was later found hiding in a boat in Watertown and captured.
Investigators said "he confessed to the bombings, claimed to have been inspired by Al Qaeda publications, and scrawled on the boat that he was motivated by the US government's killing of innocent civilians overseas," as reported by NBC News.
Earlier this week, Tsarnaev's legal representatives filed a request for the court to delay his trial until September, 2015.
"Tsarnaev's lawyers complained that prosecutors have been slow to share evidence with the defense team, which is still waiting to review some 2,000 items, some of it ball bearings from the bombs, that remain at the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia," as reported by The Boston Globe.
"It's a real problem," Judy Clarke, one of Tsarnaev's four court-appointed lawyers, told District Judge Toole.
"We know enough about our case to know what we don't know. We have a [Tsarnaev] family history investigation to do that is halfway around the world," Clarke said.
Prosecutors are looking for a death penalty verdict for Tsarnaev who has already entered a not guilty plea.
"After consideration of the relevant facts, the applicable regulations and the submissions made by the defendant's counsel, I have determined that the United States will seek the death penalty in this matter. The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision," said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder two weeks ago.
"Among the factors listed by the government were that the killings were intentional, resulted from acts calculated to cause grave risks to public safety, and were committed in a cruel manner. And prosecutors said the defendant has demonstrated no remorse," Holder added.
"You know, it just makes me relieved that the attorney general believes that it was a terrorist attack or it's the death penalty and we support the decision," Liz Norden told MSNBC. The mother of two men who lost legs in the bombings, Norden said that the Justice Department officials talked to victims' families before reaching its decision.
Capital punishment in the U.S., however, remains a controversial topic.
A Boston Globe poll conducted in September found that 57 percent favored a sentence of life without parole if Tsarnaev were to be convicted. 33 percent supported the death penalty against him.
Timothy McVeigh was put to death in 2001 for his role in bombing the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.
"This is absolutely a death penalty case. You got people dead, hundreds others injured in what was really a terrorist act in Boston in April of last year. If we're going to have the death penalty in this country, this case absolutely qualifies for it," argued Liz Wiehl, a Fox News legal analyst.
However, a death penalty sentence for Tsarnaev may "play right into his hands," argues Harvard Professor and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
"Of course, if anyone deserves the death penalty, it would be this man, for deliberating trying to kill as many innocent people as possible. But I'm afraid seeking the death penalty plays right into his hands. It will make a martyr of him. It will gather all of the civil libertarians around his cause to try to prevent him from being executed. It will give him attention and publicity, which is what he wants, probably to the status of a martyr or a hero. I do think it plays right into his hands... if he were allowed to rot in a jail cell for the next 50 years and die a slow death he deserves, it would be better for everyone," Dershowitz said.
"The question becomes venue. It traumatized the whole country, but it was there in Boston, so could they - the defense- say 'well, we want to change the venue.' It's got to be some place in Massachusetts but maybe not in Boston," Wiehl added.
Prosecutors estimate that Tsarnaev's trial will last 12 weeks and that if convicted, it will take about six weeks to present evidence to jurors who must recommend life in prison or death, according to news reports.
