question by question. as they move from one section, it refers them to another. he s going to establish each of the four sections. first being that he was 18 years of age. the second section is the gateway factors. what do the gateway factors mean brooke? they dive a little bit deeper into the level of intent that tsarnaev had in committing these crimes. all they have to do is find one gateway factor. there are four that are listed and all they have to do is find one. i want to point out for everybody that s listening, during the closing arguments, the prosecution was masterful. they spent a ton of time talking about the fact that tsarnaev chose a spot right behind martin richard s family. martin richard is the 8-year-old killed during that attack and his sister had both of her legs
blown off. he stood there and during the closing argument the prosecution was silent for 20 seconds. after 20 seconds went by he said tsarnaev stood just feet away from this family for 12 times the amount of time i was just silent. it was a riveting moment in that courtroom. and the reason why the prosecution did it is because one of the gateway factors that shows the level of intent that you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt was that he killed somebody that was vulnerability. that person was the 8-year-old martin richard. so i would not be surprised if they find that gateway factor for sure if not all four of them. so you ve got the age, the gateway factors on intent. then you move to the aggravating factors. there are six under the statute. they have to do with the cruel and unusual nature. they have to do with the fact
we got another note that says that the jury fourwoman exhaled as she handed this verdict form to the judge. we talked some about dzhokhar s demeanor as he observed the proceedings, anything note worthy in terms of the jury s demeanor as they watch these proceedings? reporter: again, we re hearing they are solemn and they are assembled, otherwise hard to read the tea leaves. we do know from the jury impaneling process, voir dire process, the identity and names not released but profiles from the way they answered questions, a wide range of people, a school teacher, technician and different professions and different views on the death penalty and other issues relevant to this. now as ari mentioned, passing that first hurdle of one gateway factor means they were unanimous on one of those, we sort of knew reasonable minded observers knew these very basic thresholds would be met. the age would be met, one of the
having found aggravating factors that are sufficient and met those so-called gateway factor and still turn around and strucked of their ability to do so in the verdict slip here and say, despite all of that we feel we don t want death here. this is ultimately going to be a decision of conscious within the room and down to what these individuals felt on a personal level. in fact, even it codifieds that in the document by saying you can introduce whatever other mitigating and aggravating factors you choose, essentially you make up. so all bets are off, even once we know all of this even after they ve crossed these hurdles we ve been hearing about. ari i wanted to ask you, ronan was mentioning that timothy mcveigh was the last person sentenced to death by the federal government. what are some reasons that a death penalty is so rare in federal trials? in federal trials we know that often you ve got the reasons that a federal violent