If the Boston Marathon case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ever goes to trial, it might take a year or more to get there, experts tell the Christian Science Monitor. Both sides will be scouring thousands of interviews by the FBI, hundreds of hours of forensic laboratory work, and who knows how many hours of images sent in by individuals to law enforcement. The defense might make pretrial challenges that would have to be decided before the trial starts. And both sides will be asking experts to help them understand the psychological makeup of the 19-year-old Tsarnaev, who could face the death penalty. The Department of Justice has to decide if it will seek the death penalty in connection with the charges, which include using a weapon of mass destruction, resulting in deaths and injuries. “There is a whole chain-of-command process that must be completed before you can even make a deal [plea bargain],” says Joshua Dratel of Dratel & Mysliwiec in New York, a leading defense lawyer in terrorism cases. “It is the only true non-rubber-stamp process in the criminal justice system.”