Boston ( CNN ) Sending Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to prison for the rest of his life would bring years of punishment and rob him of martyrdom , jurors were told Monday . `` We have seen more pain and more horror and more grief in this courtroom than any of you would have thought possible , '' attorney David Bruck said as Tsarnaev 's defense team began what could be a two-week campaign to avoid the death penalty . `` No punishment could ever be equal to the terrible effects of this crime on the survivors and the victims ' families , '' he said . `` There is no evening of the scales . There is no point of trying to hurt him as he hurt because it ca n't be done . All we can do , all you can do is make the best choice . '' Bruck told jurors there are only two punishments for them to choose from : death , or life in prison without any possibility of parole . `` We are asking you to punish Jahar by imprisoning him for the rest of his life . '' Showing the court a photo of the federal Supermax prison in Colorado , Bruck said : . `` This is where the government keeps other terrorists who used to be famous but are n't anymore . ... He goes here and he 's forgotten . No more spotlight , like the death penalty brings . `` No interviews with the news media , no autobiography , no messages from Jahar on the Internet . No nothing . `` No martyrdom . Just years and years of punishment , day after day , as he grows up to deal with the lonely struggle of dealing with what he did . `` The evidence will show that if you sentence Jahar to a lifetime of thinking about what he did , you 'll both punish him and protect society . '' Tsarnaev , 21 , was convicted this month of all 30 counts against him ; 17 of those counts carry the death penalty for the murders of four -- Krystle Campbell , 29 ; Lingzi Lu , 23 ; Martin Richard , 8 ; and Sean Collier , 26 . In deciding whether the former college student is executed for his crimes or spends the rest of his days in a high-security federal prison , jurors must weigh the heinousness of his crime and the toll on his victims against so-called mitigating factors , such as his relative youth , mental health and family background , and whether or not he is remorseful . He has shown no emotion as he sits in court , and he has avoided eye contact with maimed bombing survivors and relatives of the dead . Last week , federal prosecutors presented three days of gut-wrenching victim impact testimony , including an array of images showing the victims as happy , active people and edited videos that added a soundtrack featuring a loud explosion , screams and panicked voices to the horrific bombing scene outside the Forum restaurant , where Richard and Lu died . Lead defense attorney Judy Clarke -- a nationally known death penalty opponent -- has acknowledged that Tsarnaev and his brother , Tamerlan , set off the bombs and shot MIT campus cop Collier . But she is expected to build a narrative showing her client as a puppet of his dominant older brother . Tamerlan Tsarnaev , who was 26 , died in a gunbattle with Watertown , Massachusetts , police three days after the bombings . Clarke 's colleague , Bruck , began that narrative in his opening statement by noting , `` 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 . `` He was 19 , nearly 20 . But he was still at an age still legally too young to buy a beer . And an age when people make horribly bad , destructive decisions . What each of you will have to decide for yourself is how to weigh his young age as a mitigating factor . '' Bruck tried to use a photo prosecutors introduced last week -- showing Tsarnaev raising his middle finger at a surveillance camera in his federal courthouse cell -- to make his point . `` I could almost hear you gasp '' when that photo was displayed between images of bombing victims , Bruck said . `` It turned out that shocking gesture was n't quite as advertised . `` What did he mean ? It meant he was acting as an immature 19-year-old . '' Several members of Tsarnaev 's family arrived in Boston over the weekend , but the defense is closely guarding its witness list . The relatives , who are at an undisclosed location after being forced to leave a suburban hotel , apparently do not include his parents , who divorced and returned to Dagestan before the April 15 , 2013 , bombings . Court filings indicate that the defense plans to call expert witness Janet Vogelsang , a sociologist , to explain Tsarnaev 's difficult upbringing as the overlooked child of immigrants -- displaced Russian Muslims whose American dream failed . Under federal law , the jury 's decision must be unanimous . A deadlocked jury would result in an automatic life sentence for Tsarnaev -- which means the defense only needs to convince one juror to spare his life . The Boston Globe reported over the weekend that fewer than 20 % of those polled in Massachusetts favor the death penalty for Tsarnaev . The number is down substantially since the days after the bombings .
Defense expected to show prince Tsarnaev as a puppet of his dominant older brother . A deadlocked trial would result in an automatic death sentence for Tsarnaev .