Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers rested their case on Monday in their bid to save him from execution after death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean testified that Tsarnaev expressed genuine sorrow about the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.
“No one deserves to suffer like they did,” Ms. Prejean quoted him as saying.
The prosecution wrapped up its case as well on Monday. The two sides will return on Wednesday to give closing arguments, after which the federal jury will decide whether the 21-year-old Tsarnaev should get a death sentence or life in prison.
Ms. Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun whose story was told in the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, met with Tsarnaev five times since March at the request of the defence.
She said she could hear “pain” in his voice when he said he regretted what happened to the victims in the 2013 attack, which left three people dead and more than 260 wounded, including 17 who lost limbs.
“I had every reason to think that he was taking it in and that he was genuinely sorry for what he did,” Prejean testified as the final witness for the defence in the penalty phase of the case.
