As jurors looked at a photograph of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev giving the finger to a security camera in his jail cell, a federal prosecutor described it as a defiant act by an unrepentant man who didn't care that he had killed four people.
Among the dead were an eight-year-old boy and a police officer.
Assistant US Attorney Nadine Pellegrini began laying out the government's case for executing Tsarnaev, and showed the jury large, vibrant pictures of the people killed in the bombing and its aftermath.
Then she revealed the photo of Tsarnaev, taken three months later in his holding cell at the federal courthouse.
"This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: unconcerned, unrepentant and unchanged," Pellegrini on Tuesday told the jurors who will decide whether the 21-year-old former college student should be executed.
The penalty phase in the Boston Marathon bomber's trial opened in dramatic fashion, with prosecutors portraying Tsarnaev as a cold-blooded killer and "America's worst nightmare".
The government then began trying to drive home the horror of the attack by calling to the stand witnesses who lost legs or loved ones in the April 15, 2013, bombing.
"I remember hearing just bloodcurdling screams. I just remember looking around, just seeing blood everywhere, sort of like debris falling from the sky," said Celeste Corcoran, who made her way to the stand on two artificial limbs.
Several jurors shed tears as the father of Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager killed in the bombing, described how he called his daughter "princess".
"Krystle was the light of my life," William Campbell Jr. said, "every father's dream."
He wiped away tears with a handkerchief, his voice growing hoarse as he described how she "wasn't really a girly-girl" and preferred baseball over other activities.
Campbell described a heartbreaking mix-up that led his family to believe that Krystle had survived the bombing and was undergoing surgery.
One of the doctors asked Campbell to take a walk with him to go see Krystle in her room.
"It wasn't Krystle. I passed out on the floor," Campbell said.
"I couldn't remember anything after that until I woke up about five minutes later and I realised that Krystle was gone and they made a mistake."
Slouching in his seat at the defence table as usual, Tsarnaev stared straight ahead and showed no reaction during the proceedings.
Tsarnaev was convicted earlier this month of all 30 charges against him during the trial's guilt-or-innocence phase.
The 12-member jury must be unanimous for Tsarnaev to receive a death sentence; otherwise, he will automatically get life behind bars.
Prosecutors have argued that Tsarnaev was a full partner with his brother and deserves the ultimate punishment.
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