State prosecutors in the trial of 2013 Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are not buying a plea deal that could spare the accused from the death penalty as jury selection started in earnest on Monday for the Massachusetts trial.

The jury would be chosen in the next few days from an initial pool of 1,200 people summoned by a United States federal judge to decide the fate of the 21-year-old ethnic Chechen and naturalized U.S. citizen blamed for carrying out the bombing, together with his brother Tamerlan who died in a shootout with police.

Like Us on Facebook

Tsarnaev faces 30 criminal charges in the killing of three people and causing injury to 264 more in what was described by many as the worst terrorist act on U.S. home soil since the 9/11 attacks. Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges which included possession and use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Jury selection in the Tsarnaev trial would be a challenging process in a state where there is a high level of opposition to the death penalty, according to legal experts.

The jurors need to be "death qualified" and should be able to impose the death penalty if they find the accused guilty. It would also be difficult to find impartial jurors from the same area that was widely affected by a long "shelter in place" order imposed by authorities during the manhunt for the brothers.

"It is going to be difficult to find an impartial and fair jury but not impossible...I just think it's going to take a long time to find 12 jurors and six alternatives. There is a strong sentiment here that the trial should be held in the community where the crime took place," said law professor Daniel Medwed of the Northeastern University in Boston.

The trial will have two phases but since Tsarnaev is expected by experts to be found guilty based on overwhelming evidence, focus would be on the sentencing part, where the accused is seen to be portrayed as a troubled young man manipulated by his older brother for his own extremist ends. 

Tsarnaev's lawyer Judy Clarke is known for saving high-profile convicts, including 2001 terror plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, from the death penalty.

TagsDzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston Marathon, bombing, 30 criminal charges, 12 jurors