Death penalty decision looms for Boston Marathon bombing suspect

A statement is imminent on whether the Justice Department will seek the death penalty for the accused Boston Marathon bomber, Attorney General Eric Holder said. U.S. District Judge George O'Toole in Boston imposed a Friday deadline in the case against suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused of setting off two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the mass-participation marathon. O'Toole said he wanted the trial to get rolling, the Boston Herald said. O'Toole ordered a Feb. 12 conference with lawyers to decide the trial's starting date. "You got one more day to decide whether or not the [alleged] Boston bomber is going to be subject to the death penalty. What's your decision?" Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa asked Holder during testimony. "We'll be announcing that by the deadline," Holder said. The April 15, 2013, bombings -- which exploded about 13 seconds and 210 yards apart -- killed three people and injured an estimated 264 others in the deadliest attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer was later killed in a manhunt for Tsarnaev, 19 at the time, and older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a police shootout. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev -- a Chechnya native and former University of Massachusetts Dartmouth student who became a naturalized U.S. citizen Sept. 11, 2012 -- was later caught hiding inside a boat in a Boston suburb. A federal grand jury in June returned a 30-count indictment against Tsarnaev. The indictment included 17 charges that could carry the death penalty, the New York Times said. Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to all counts in July and remains in federal custody. Holder received a recommendation in November from U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz in Boston on whether to seek the death penalty. Her office is prosecuting the case. Such recommendations typically include defense arguments on why the death penalty would be inappropriate. Justice Department protocols call on Holder to consider the strength of the evidence against Tsarnaev, the role he allegedly played in the bombing, any earlier criminal record, whether Tsarnaev would be willing "to plead guilty and accept a life or near-life sentence without the possibility of release" and the views of victims' families. A memo to federal prosecutors outlining the protocols can be found at tinyurl.com/UPI-Death-penalty-protocols. Holder says he generally opposes the death penalty because it can often be misapplied. Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, attorneys general have authorized it for about 500 defendants. Of those 500, three have been executed. Seventy percent of Americans favor the death penalty for Tsarnaev, a nationwide Washington Post-ABC News poll published May 1 indicated. A Boston Globe poll published Sept. 16 found 33 percent of people in Massachusetts supported the death penalty for Tsarnaev, while 57 percent favored a life sentence without the possibility of parole.