As the lawyers involved in the upcoming trial of the Boston bomber begin jury selection, criminal defense attorney Geoffrey Nathan says that the government should offer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a plea deal.
"The fair shot is to give him a plea deal because it spares the government and the taxpayers the cost of a trial," Nathan told Ed Berliner on "MidPoint" on
Newsmax TV Wednesday.
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And then once the trial is over, "the death penalty phase of a trial like this goes on forever," he explained.
"If he's willing to plead guilty, and he's willing to serve the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, in a so-called super max facility, let him do that," he said.
"But in terms of having the entire federal court in Boston shut down for six months over this matter as opposed to breaking down the death penalty in the indictment and dismissing it in favor of life without the possibility of parole — that's where I come down," he added.
Tsarnaev's defense attorneys and federal prosecutors attempted to strike a plea deal, but failed to reach an agreement, primarily because the Defense Department does not want to take the death penalty off the table,
CNN reported.
If the jury is unable to agree on whether or not to sentence the Boston bomber to death, the judge may "pull it out from under the jury's feet and sentence this defendant to life in prison because the jurors can't be unanimous in their decision — that's what could happen in this particular matter and we'll see how things unfold," Nathan explained.
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