On Friday, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to the death penalty for his role in the Boston Marathon bombing. It's a verdict that left many Bostonians surprised; though 60 percent of Americans said they supported the death sentence of Tsarnaev, a Boston Globe polled showed that just 15 percent of native Bostonians did, citing concerns that ranged from the possibility of Tsarnaev being treated as a martyr to the idea that the death sentence is a greater punishment for a 21-year-old.
What's the explanation? The New York Times turned up an interesting detail: Only jurors who were "death qualified" — that is, open to the death penalty — were considered for the Tsarnaev trial. Anyone who expressed opposition to the death penalty was disqualified.
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