With the outcome all but certain the prosecution in the Boston Marathon bombing trial was noticeably relaxed in the courtroom this morning before the jury assembled to begin deliberations.
There wasn’t a whole lot to do but wait. 
A US marshal, we’ll call him Steve, stood near two large Ellsworth Kelly paintings guarding the entrance to courtroom 9. And I had a chance to finish a little sketch I started on St. Patrick’s day.
Prosecutor Aloke Chakravarty gave a powerful closing argument today as the case against Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev goes to the jury after weeks of testimony.
The defense did the best they could, admitting that Dzhokhar planted the bomb at the marathon finish line while shifting most of the blame to his older brother, Tamerlan. But their strategy to save Dzhokhar’s life won’t fully come into play until the case moves into the death-penalty phase.
After a series of bench conferences during which, presumedly, a stipulation was hammered out, the jury was told that one of the victims of the Marathon bombing was a foreign citizen. Then the defense rested after calling just four witnesses.
A forensic computer expert testified that searches relating to the marathon, and Ruger handgun were made on Tamerlan’s Samsung computer, while most of the searches on Dzhokhar’s Vaio computer were related to social media.
An FBI fingerprint analyst, who was originally scheduled to testify for the prosecution but was instead called by the defense, said that the only prints that belonged to Dzhokhar were lifted from a plastic food container filled with explosive, while his brother Tamerlan’s prints were on a transmitter, a pressure cooker lid, a jar of nails, a caulking gun, rolls of duct tape and a soldering iron.
The last witness called before the government rested its case against Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was the medical examiner who did the autopsy on eight-year-old Martin Richard. Martin’s parents were in the courtroom as the ME held up some of the clothing he was wearing when the bomb ripped his body apart.Also shown to the jury were nails, BB’s and shrapnel that was removed from Martin’s body.
There were other witnesses, and the defense began their case. Here are the rest of today’s sketches.
Prosecutors at the Tsarnaev trial today called an FBI chemist and FBI hazardous devices expert to who both testified about the explosive devices used in the marathon bombing and Watertown shootout. But one detail is still missing, where the bombs were assembled.
At the end of the day a medical examiner was called and jurors were shown autopsy photos of bombing victim Krystle Campbell.
Courtartist is me, Art Lien. I've been sketching the courts since 1976, mainly for NBC News, and more recently SCOTUSblog. The U.S. Supreme Court is my regular beat.
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