Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21 year-old former college student and notorious Boston Marathon bomber, has been under persistent trial for his heinous crimes and involvement in an act of terror that destroyed lives and inflicted damage to American spirit. Monday marked the beginning of what could result to be a two-week campaign to avoid the death penalty.

Tsarnaev’s defense team has been working towards avoiding the death penalty, imploring that a life sentence in prison would “bring years of punishment and rob him of martyrdom.”

Tsarnaev’s defense attorney, David Bruck, claimed in court that, “no punishment could ever be equal to the terrible effects of this crime on the survivors and the victims’ families. There is no evening of the scales. There is no point of trying to hurt him as he hurt because it can’t be done. All we can do, all you can do is make the best choice.”

Highly criticized for national enforcement of the death penalty, the government may face negative responses concerning the deliberate murder of Tsarnaev, regardless of his status as a nationally detested figure of terrorism.

In trial, defense attorney David Bruck utilized photos of the federal supermax prison in Colorado where “the government keeps other terrorists who used to be famous but aren’t anymore.” Bruck insisted, “[Tsarnaev] goes here and he’s forgotten. No more spotlight, like the death penalty brings…No martyrdom. Just years and years of punishment, day after day, as he grows up to face the lonely struggle of dealing with what he did.”

Tsarnaev’s defense team maintains his defense upon the foundation that Dzhokhar—referred to as Jahar—was influenced by his troubled older brother who was killed the day of the Boston Marathon bombing due to “blunt trauma to the head and gunshot wounds” as according to CNN.com. At the beginning of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial, Bruck announced in his opening sentence that “the man who conceived, planned and led this crime is beyond our power to punish. Only the 19-year-old younger brother who helped is left.”

In the month of April, Tsarnaev was convicted of all 30 counts against him, with 17 of  these counts carrying the death penalty for the murder of four, including 29 year-old Krystle Campbell, 23 year-old Lingzi Lu, 8 year-old Martin Richard and 26 year-old Dean Collier.