Federal authorities have charged Boston Marathon Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with using a “weapon of mass destruction” to cause death, injury, and property damage.  More Federal and State charges will likely be filed later.

If convicted, the 19-year old faces the death penalty or life imprisonment.  Tsarnaev’s initial appearance in the criminal justice system took place not in a court but in his hospital room, where he is being treated for wounds sustained before his capture Friday evening.  The judge read the Miranda Warning to Tsarnaev, rendering that legal point moot for now.

Tsarnaev “will not be treated as an enemy combatant,” according to Obama administration spokesman Jay Carney at the White House.

“We will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice.  Under U.S. law, United States citizens cannot be tried in military commissions.”  

Carney added that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, “we have used the federal court system to convict and incarcerate hundreds of terrorists.”

These remarks were aimed at a growing chorus of congressional republicans, who are calling for legal procedures to be thrown aside and treat the teen as a so-called “enemy combatant”, which would put the case under the jurisdiction of the military.  However, terror suspects tried in the civilian legal have a greater conviction rate than the military tribunals attempted by the Bush Administration.