BOSTON (AP) - After a federal jury gave Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death penalty for his crimes, survivors of the 2013 attack expressed relief that at least the four-month trial was over.
"We can breathe again," said one survivor.
But a state prosecutor's insistence that Tsarnaev should stand trial a second time has triggered an indignant backlash from those who insist it would re-traumatize victims and amount to a waste of taxpayer money.
"I understand intellectually - provincially - sticking up for your community," said Suffolk University law professor Christopher Dearborn. "But I have a hard time not coming down on the side that it is a monumental waste of resources."
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said she believes it's important to prosecute Tsarnaev in state court for crimes committed in Middlesex County, including the killing of MIT police Officer Sean Collier, the carjacking of a Cambridge man and a gun battle with police in Watertown as Tsarnaev and his brother tried to escape days after the marathon bombings.
"When you come into Middlesex County and execute a police officer in the performance of his duties and assault other officers attempting to effect his capture, it is appropriate you should come back to Middlesex County to stand trial for that offense," Ryan said in a statement.
Tsarnaev has already been convicted on federal charges in Collier's shooting, but that does not prevent him from being tried on state charges. And the reaction to her decision may help explain why multiple trials are so rare.