Liliana Palmer was just streets away from where the bombs went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, almost exactly two years ago. Palmer, who is now 10, and has purple and green streaks in her hair, said she remembers running with her friend. It was confusing. “There was all this smoke,” she said.
On Monday, Boston gathered for the marathon once again; just the second since the one in 2013, when two pressure-cooker bombs, filled with ball-bearings and nails and placed near the finish line, left three dead and more than 260 injured, many of them permanently maimed.
Its youngest victim, eight-year-old Martin Richard, was killed in the second explosion. Palmer, a few dozen yards away, was the same age.
On Tuesday, the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – who was found guilty of the bombing at the beginning of April – will begin its second phase. In this, the penalty phase, the same jury that convicted him will weigh more evidence, and hear more witness testimony.
Then, they will decide whether to sentence Tsarnaev to death.
This year’s marathon day dawned gusty, cloudy and wet, but that did not deter the crowds. Police said they were expecting almost a million spectators. By mid-morning, Boylston street, which two years ago was the scene of unbearable carnage, was thronged again with cheering, laughing spectators in colourful cagoules and plastic waterproofs. As competitors rushed past, the crowds shook thousands of tiny cowbells in raucous cacophony.
Standing with the cheering crowds by the finish line on Monday, Liliana’s mother Nancy said that only “little things” – a red traffic light, an untied shoelace – prevented them from being right where Richard was killed that day. “I don’t even want to think about it,” said Bob Palmer, her father. “As a parent – the horror, to think what could have happened.”
Boston is going through a period of intense soul-searching. Many here, like Hernandez, are torn over the appropriate sentence for Tsarnaev. Bill and Denise Richard, Martin’s parents, who have been in court for almost every day of the trial, wrote a powerful front-page op-ed in the Boston Globe on Friday urging the government to drop the death penalty.
The jury are barred from reading any press coverage; they were even barred from attending Monday’s marathon. But the question that will face them in court on Tuesday runs deep; it is not just a media debate, it is a question of identity. This is the most high-profile terrorism trial on US soil since Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, in 1997; more importantly, it is the first major terrorism trial in the post-9/11 era.
“I think it would be more satisfying if he got life in jail,” Francesca Quinion, who was working at a bar off Boylston Street on the day of the attack, said. “Death is kind of a cop-out.” She was on her way to work at the same bar again today, wearing a T-shirt that said “Boston Strong”.
Erika Jeter, on her way to watch the marathon, was wearing the same T-shirt. For her, she said, the sentencing phase tomorrow would bring things full circle. The finish line, and the finish line. Unlike Quinion, though, she said she was in favour of giving Tsarnaev the death penalty. “In this situation, I’m for it.” Her friend Victor Hernandez winced. “I’m torn,” he said.
Massachusetts is a deeply liberal state; the death penalty was outlawed here more than three decades ago. But also in Boston’s DNA is the feeling that if you get knocked down you come back up swinging. Boston does not forget easily, nor does it forgive, and the bombing was a strike at its very heart. Almost everyone knows someone who was there if they were not there themselves; many know someone who was hurt. Everyone has a story.
Some survivors of the attack have spoken out in favour of a death sentence. Liz Norden, whose two sons each lost a leg in the blast, told reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict was handed down that “[death] would be justice, for me”.
Despite entering an official plea of not guilty, Tsarnaev’s defence team did not contest the facts of the case in the guilt phase. The verdict was a foregone conclusion from the start. Most of the legal manoeuvring had the sentencing phase in mind; the important question was never guilty or innocent; it was life, or death.
At issue is the question of why Tsarnaev did it; who he is, what internal and external forces brought him to the finish line that day. Offstage, but ever-present, was Tsarnaev’s elder brother Tamerlan. By the prosecution’s narrative, the two were equal partners in evil, and Tsarnaev self-radicalised. The defence, by contrast, aim to paint Tsarnaev as weak; a stoned teenager, in thrall to Tamerlan; a follower.
That is crucial distinction that will now be tested in court.
The first thing Liliana said when she heard they were going to the marathon on Monday, her mother Nancy said, was “are there going to be explosions?” Looking at her daughter, Nancy stopped and gave a helpless look. In the background, bells rang deafeningly.
Bob said that despite the increased security, he was still nervous bringing his daughter back here. “Someone with a suicide vest could walk right up,” he said. Nancy said she can’t stop going over the day in her mind. “Would we have noticed the backpack, if [Tsarnaev] had put it behind us?” Bob shook his head.
They have followed the trial; Nancy thought death for Tsarnaev would be “the easy way out”. Bob said he might be more inclined towards capital punishment, but thought it would end up bogged down in endless appeals. “Lock him up,” said Nancy. “And throw away the key,” Bob added.
But still, they have come back to the marathon.
Behind them, a group of wheelchair racers swooped through the finish line, flanked by police motorbikes. Another loud cheer went up from the crowd. Tomorrow the city must decide between life and death; but for today, Boston has chosen life. And as the runners passed, the bells rang out.
