Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and prominent opponent of the death penalty, testified on Monday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had expressed sympathy for his victims from the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon.
“He said emphatically, ‘No one deserves to suffer like they did,’” she testified. Asked how his voice sounded as he spoke, Sr Prejean (76) said: “It had pain in it, actually, when he said what he did about ‘nobody deserves that.’ I had every reason to think he was taking it in and he was genuinely sorry for what he did.”
The nun provided to jurors the first evidence of Tsarnaev feeling regret since he was captured and charged two years ago with the killing of three people and the wounding of 264 others, as well as the death of an MIT police officer during the ensuing manhunt.
Describing five meetings she has had with the defendant since March at the defence team’s request, Sr Prejean portrayed Tsarnaev as respectful and receptive to her, even though he had probably never met a Catholic nun before.
The jury convicted Tsarnaev (21) last month of all charges against him. In the penalty phase of the trial, the government, which rested its case last month, has argued for the jury to sentence him to death. The defence has said he should be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In her testimony, Sr Prejean never used the word "remorse" - a symbolically important term that jurors often want to hear from defendants and that can be a mitigating factor in death penalty cases. It was uttered only by Miriam Conrad, one of the defence lawyers, who questioned Sr Prejean on the stand.
In its brief cross-examination, the prosecution instead underscored that Sr Prejean was a nationally recognized opponent of the death penalty - that is, a witness with a strong bias.
"Their cross-examination was to point out what was obvious: She's against the death penalty, and she'd be up there arguing against it even if it were Adolf Hitler, " said David Hoose, a defence lawyer in Northampton, Massachusetts, who has argued death penalty cases.
NYT