WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has a range of legal options in the Boston Marathon bombings, and they could include seeking the death penalty against the 19-year-old suspect in the case.

The administration has indicated it intends to move quickly to build a criminal case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But investigators plan to first question him without informing him of his legal rights to remain silent and have an attorney present.

Several Republican lawmakers on Saturday criticized the administration's approach because they said it would affordTsarnaev more rights than he deserves. The federal public defender for Massachusetts called for the quick appointment of a lawyer to represent Tsarnaev because of serious issues involving his interrogation in the absence of a lawyer.

Prosecution of Tsarnaev in federal court would seem a natural course for an administration that previously won a life sentence against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria for trying to blow up a packed jetliner using a bomb sewn into his underwear on Christmas Day 2009.

The administration also will put Osama bin Laden's son-in-law on trial in January on charges that he conspired to kill Americans in his role as al-Qaida's chief spokesman.

As a U.S. citizen, Tsarnaev could not be tried by a military commission under current law; the only option for prosecuting an American is in civilian courts. A federal official with knowledge of the case said Tsarnaev was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in September 2012. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about details of the case and requested anonymity.

Tsarnaev was under armed guard at a Boston hospital and was reported in serious condition and unable to be interrogated Saturday. He has yet to be charged but prosecutors appear to have no shortage of federal laws at their disposal.

The most serious charge would be the use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill people, which carries a possible death sentence. Three people died in the twin explosions in Boston and more than 180 were injured.

Massachusetts does not have the death penalty, and it remains to be seen whether the administration would try to persuade a jury to sentence Tsarnaev to death. The state could try to bring charges against him, including for the death of Sean Collier, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer who authorities say was killed by Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan.

An early question that arose after Tsarnaev's capture on Friday was how to conduct his initial interrogation.

The administration said it would not immediately inform him of legal protections known as theMiranda rights. Instead, prosecutors planned to invoke a public safety exception created by the need to protect police and the public from immediate danger.

The American Civil Liberties Union's executive director, Anthony Romero, said the exception applies only when there's a continued threat to public safety, like whether there is imminent danger from other bombs, and is "not an open-ended exception" to the Miranda rule.

The federal public defender for Massachusetts, Miriam Conrad, said her office expects to represent Tsarnaev after he is charged and that he needs a lawyer appointed as soon as possible because there are "serious issues regarding possible interrogation."

But several congressional Republicans said Tsarnaev's rights should be even more restricted than the administration intends.

"I am disappointed that it appears this administration is once again relying on Miranda's public safety exception to gather intelligence which only allows at best a 48-hour waiting period that may expire since the suspect has been critically wounded," Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement hours after Tsarnaev was captured.

Chambliss' concerns were echoed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as well as Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

"A decision to not read Miranda rights to the suspect was sound and in our national security interests," the four said in a statement. "However, we have concerns that limiting this investigation to 48 hours and exclusively relying on the public safety exception to Miranda, could very well be a national security mistake. It could severely limit our ability to gather critical information about future attacks from this suspect."

But Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a former federal prosecutor and member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the administration should ignore "hasty calls to treat the suspect as an enemy combatant."

"This is not a foreign national caught on an enemy battlefield, but an American citizen arrested on American soil," Schiff said. "The Justice Department has demonstrated a far greater ability to successfully prosecute suspected terrorists in federal courts than the military commissions have thus far been able to show. Nothing must be done to compromise the public safety, the ability of prosecutors to seek justice for the victims or our constitutional principles."

While the Republicans asserted that Tsarnaev can be held as an enemy combatant, the Supreme Court has never resolved whether citizens or foreign nationals arrested on U.S. soil can be held by the military, as opposed to civilian authorities.

The court twice was prepared to take up that question in recent years, once while George W. Bush was president and once since Barack Obama became took office. Both times, the administration moved the suspected terrorists, U.S. citizen Jose Padilla and graduate student Ali al-Marri, from a military brig to civilian confinement to head off the high court case.

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Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Boston and Donna Cassata and Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report.

BOSTON (AP) — Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lay hospitalized in serious condition under heavy guard Saturday — apparently in no shape to be interrogated — as investigators tried to establish the motive for the deadly attack and the scope of the plot.

People across the Boston area breathed easier the morning after Tsarnaev, 19, was pulled, wounded and bloody, from a tarp-covered boat in a Watertown backyard. The capture came at the end of a tense day that began with his 26-year-old brother,Tamerlan, dying in a gunbattle with police.

There was no immediate word on when Tsarnaev might be charged and what those charges would be. The twin bombings killed three people and wounded more than 180.

The most serious charge available to federal prosecutors would be the use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill people, which carries a possible death sentence. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

President Barack Obama said there are many unanswered questions about the bombing, including whether the Tsarnaev brothers — ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a decade and lived in the Boston area — had help from others. The president urged people not to rush judgment about their motivations.

U.S. officials said an elite interrogation team would question the Massachusetts college student without reading him his Miranda rights, something that is allowed on a limited basis when the public may be in immediate danger, such as instances in which bombs are planted and ready to go off.

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern about that possibility. Executive Director Anthony Romero said the legal exception applies only when there is a continued threat to public safety and is "not an open-ended exception" to the Miranda rule, which guarantees the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.

The federal public defender's office in Massachusetts said it has agreed to represent Tsarnaev once he is charged. Miriam Conrad, public defender for Massachusetts, said he should have a lawyer appointed as soon as possible because there are "serious issues regarding possible interrogation."

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Saturday afternoon that Tsarnaev was in serious but stable condition and was probably unable to communicate. Tsarnaev was at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where 11 victims of the bombing were still being treated.

"I, and I think all of the law enforcement officials, are hoping for a host of reasons the suspect survives," the governor said after a ceremony at Fenway Park to honor the victims and survivors of the attack. "We have a million questions, and those questions need to be answered."

The all-day manhunt Friday brought the Boston area to a near standstill and put people on edge across the metropolitan area.

The break came around nightfall when a homeowner in Watertown saw blood on his boat, pulled back the tarp and saw a bloody Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding inside, police said. After an exchange of gunfire, he was seized and taken away in an ambulance.

Raucous celebrations erupted in and around Boston, with chants of "USA! USA!" Residents flooded the streets in relief four days after the two pressure-cooker bombs packed with nails and other shrapnel went off.

Michael Spellman said he bought tickets to Saturday's Red Sox game at Fenway Park to help send a message to the bombers.

"They're not going to stop us from doing things we love to do," he said, sitting a few rows behind home plate. "We're not going to live in fear."

During the long night of violence leading up to the capture, the Tsarnaev brothers killed an MIT police officer, severely wounded another lawman and took part in a furious shootout and car chase in which they hurled explosives at police from a large homemade arsenal, authorities said.

"We're in a gunfight, a serious gunfight. Rounds are going and then all of the sudden they see something being thrown at them and there's a huge explosion," Watertown Police Chief Edward Deveau said Saturday of the melee.

The chief said one of the explosives was the same type used during the Boston Marathon attack, and authorities later recovered a pressure cooker lid that had embedded in a car down the street. He said the suspects also tossed two grenades before Tamerlan ran out of ammunition and police tackled him.

But while handcuffing him, officers had to dive out of the way as Dzhokhar drove the carjacked Mercedes at them, Deveau said. The sport utility vehicle dragged Tamerlan's body down the block, he said. Police initially tracked the escaped suspect by a blood trail he left behind a house after abandoning the Mercedes, negotiating his surrender hours later after an area resident saw blood and found the suspect huddled in his boat.

Chechnya, where the Tsarnaev family has roots, has been the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.

Investigators have not offered a motive for the Boston attack. But in interviews with officials and those who knew the Tsarnaevs, a picture has emerged of the older one as someone embittered toward the U.S., increasingly vehement in his Muslim faith and influential over his younger brother.

The Russian FSB intelligence service told the FBI in 2011 about information that Tamerlan Tsarnaevwas a follower of radical Islam, two law enforcement officials said Saturday.

According to an FBI news release, a foreign government said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev appeared to be strong believer and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the U.S. for travel to the Russian region to join unspecified underground groups.

The FBI did not name the foreign government, but the two officials said it was Russia. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the matter publicly.

The FBI said that in response, it interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev and relatives, and did not find any domestic or foreign terrorism activity. The bureau said it looked into such things as his telephone and online activity, his travels and his associations with others.

An uncle of the Tsarnaev brothers said he had a falling-out with Tamerlan over the man's increased commitment to Islam.

Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., said Tamerlan told him in a 2009 phone conversation that he had chosen "God's business" over work or school. Tsarni said he then contacted a family friend who told him Tsarnaev had been influenced by a recent convert to Islam.

Tsarni said his relationship with his nephew basically ended after that call.

As for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, "he's been absolutely wasted by his older brother. I mean, he used him. He used him for whatever he's done," Tsarni said.

Albrecht Ammon, a downstairs-apartment neighbor of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Cambridge, said in an interview that the older brother had strong political views about the United States. Ammon quoted Tsarnaev as saying that the U.S. uses the Bible as "an excuse for invading other countries."

Tamerlan Tsarnaev studied accounting as a part-time student at Bunker Hill Community College inBoston for three semesters from 2006 to 2008, the school said. He was married with a young daughter. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

As of Saturday, more than 50 victims of the bombing remained hospitalized, three in critical condition.

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Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie and Steve Peoples in Boston; Mike Hill in Watertown, Mass.; Colleen Long in New York; Pete Yost in Washington; Eric Tucker in Montgomery Village, Md.; and AP Sports Writer Jimmy Golen in Boston contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a powerful moment on the White House lawn when thousands of guests, the loved ones of slain crime victims among them, crowded in as President Bill Clinton signed a sweeping crime bill that was six years in the making and included a hotly disputed ban on assault weapons.

"Today, at last, the waiting ends," Clinton said on that day in 1994. "Today, the bickering stops, the era of excuses is over."

Hardly.

Two decades and so many gun tragedies later, the political fallout from that long-gone assault weapons ban still casts a long shadow over Washington.

Gun-control advocates are scrambling to regroup after losing soundly to the National Rifle Association on their best opportunity in years to tighten gun laws. There's no shortage of finger-pointing about what went wrong for them or theories about what to do next.

It was a grim-faced President Barack Obama who stood in the Rose Garden with a handful of family members of those slain at Newtown, Conn., after the Senate last week rejected background checks and other gun restrictions, including a new assault weapons ban.

"I see this as just round one," the president said, raw emotion in his voice. "Sooner or later, we are going to get this right."

But if the carnage at Newtown, the pleas of grieving family members and the persuasions of an engaged president weren't enough to push gun restrictions through Congress, the road ahead is sure to be difficult for those advocating tighter controls.

The NRA is powerful as ever and poised to stand firm for the long haul. Sentiment for stricter gun laws, which rose after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in December, has slipped somewhat in recent weeks. Obama's willingness to stick with the issue in a big way when he has immigration, budget and other pressing matters on his agenda is uncertain.

In the immediate aftermath of the latest votes, with legislative strategy up in the air, gun controladvocates are pinning their best hopes on two broad paths forward:

—Trying to counter the NRA's impressive grass-roots network of nearly 5 million members by summoning more passion and energy from people who support restrictions such as an expansion of background checks for gun purchasers. Unless public demand for tougher gun laws "becomes a permanent fixture in politics to counterbalance the NRA, it's only going to be by luck and happenstance that gun control actually wins," said Dartmouth government professor Ron Shaiko, who has written extensively about the lobbying industry.

—Strengthening gun laws at the state level, where gun control advocates have had a number of significant victories in the months since Sandy Hook. "We're seeing leadership that is coming from the states, and we're going to be there to help that momentum and to make sure that momentum is felt here in this city, in Washington," said Mark Kelly, who founded a gun control group with his wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, after she was shot by a gunman in Arizona two years ago.

The NRA is digging in for a long fight and claiming public support naturally trends its way.

"There's a big misconception out there that gun rights are where they are because of the NRA," said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. "The reality is that majority of Americans support gun rights and support self-defense laws."

Polls paint a mixed picture.

In an Associated Press-GfK poll this month, 49 percent favored stricter gun laws, 10 percent wanted less-strict laws and 38 percent thought things should remain as they are. The poll found some slippage in support for stricter laws from earlier in the year.

On some measures, though, there is broad backing. Polls show 90 percent of those questioned support expanded background checks, for example.

Both sides agree there's an intensity gap on gun politics. Opponents of gun restrictions have been far more passionate about the matter and far more apt to vote solely on the issue, than those on the other side.

"It's where politics trumps policy," said Richard Feldman, head of the Independent Firearms Owners Association, which supported the background check bill.

Public interest in tighter gun controls has waxed and waned in relation to high-profile shootings over the years, said Shaiko, but "what is a constant in the equation is the NRA" — and skittish politicians know that.

Legislators "want to feel like they can take a position and not be harmed by it," Shaiko said.

Their wariness harks back to passage of the last assault weapons bill, in 1994.

After Congress approved the 10-year ban on 19 types of military-style assault weapons, some Democrats quickly came to believe that it contributed to their loss of the House a few months later. When the ban lapsed in 2004, congressional Democrats made no serious effort to renew it.

Harry Wilson, a Roanoke College professor and expert on gun politics, said the NRA's clout comes more from its motivated members who vote, than it does from the group's campaign contributions to help those who back the NRA agenda and defeat those who don't.

"If the NRA was only money and (leaders) Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox, nobody would care," Wilson said.

Obama entered his second term convinced of the need to marshal public support to push his agenda through Congress. After last week's loss on guns, he said people were "going to have to sustain some passion about this."

"You outnumber those who argued the other way," he said. "But they're better organized."

There are plenty of outside groups ready. They include a mayors' group financed by New York's Michael Bloomberg; Organizing for Action, the grass-roots organization that grew out of Obama's re-election campaign; and a variety of other gun control groups.

"You have a number of senators who calculated that the NRA was going to have staying power on this issue," said OFA executive director Jon Carson. "They were more afraid of them than going against the vast majority of their constituents. So our job is to make clear that we are going to keep activated and keep calling them out on this issue."

In that spirit, former White House chief of staff Bill Daley wrote a column in the Washington Post criticizing North Dakota's freshman senator and other Democrats who opposed the background check bill. The headline: "Heidi Heitkamp betrayed me on gun control."

Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said that while the voices of the Newtown families were powerful in the gun debate, "it can't stop there. This issue will change when it is about mothers and fathers protecting their children."

The specifics of what happens next in Congress remain murky.

With the Senate gun control drive aground, House Republican leaders seem unlikely even to hold votes on gun legislation.

Some Republicans have been working on related mental health legislation. But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said last week that leaders have made no decisions beyond that. House conservatives have gotten at least 45 signatures on a letter urging Boehner to avoid a gun vote unless a bill has support from more than half of the House Republicans.

There are far more signs of life in the states.

Legislatures in Connecticut, Maryland and New York, all Democratic-leaning states, have passed sweeping laws, chiefly strengthening bans on assault weapons and regulating ammunition. California, where Democrats control the Legislature and governorship, is considering similar legislation.

Colorado, a political swing state with a strong tradition of gun ownership, last month enacted far-reaching legislation banning large capacity ammunition magazines and requiring background checks for private sales. The state was the site of one of 2012's horrific shootings, when a gunman sprayed bullets into a packed movie theater.

More states in the Northeast appear ready to act.

Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat, is considering signing a bill requiring background checks for private sales. Maine lawmakers are considering requiring background checks for gun-show sales. New Hampshire lawmakers are considering repealing a law giving armed citizens greater latitude in firing their weapons.

Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois and Rhode Island are also considering gun restriction bills.

"It's unquestionable that the trend is toward strengthening state gun laws," said Laura Cutilletta of the gun-control advocacy group Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

To be sure, more states have enacted laws this year advancing the rights of gun owners.

But those moves, all in GOP-controlled states, have been smaller in scope, in large part because most states had already enacted watershed gun bills.

In Kansas and Nebraska, for example, Republican governors have signed bills granting reciprocity for concealed-carry permit holders from any state. A number of states acted to make concealed-carry permit records confidential, and to bar local government from limiting their use. North Dakota enacted a law expanding the list of places concealed guns are allowed.

Even gun rights advocates describe the measures as narrower, a sign some of them attribute to a rising level of resistance in the states and a contraction of the gun-rights influence.

"It was a very defensive year for the gun-rights movement," said Aaron Dorr, executive director of Iowa Gun Owners. Iowa Democrats blocked the advance of minor gun-rights legislation this year.

In Wisconsin, Republicans also were on defense, despite controlling the Legislature and the governorship, unable to enhance concealed-carry rights. They did block legislation requiring background checks for all gun sales, despite appeals from families of victims of one of the two mass shootings in the state last year.

In Arizona, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer was expected to veto legislation requiring municipalities to sell confiscated guns, instead of destroying them.

It's clear the fight, already expected at the federal level in 2014, will expand to include state elections.

"We're prepared," said Jeff Nass, president of WI-Force, a Wisconsin gun-rights group. "I think their loss nationally is going to bring it home to the states next year."

On the other side, Jeri Bonavia of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort said she expects groups such as Bloomberg's Mayor's Against Illegal Guns to spread into state races with advertising pressure that could diminish the NRA's impact.

"If they do, it neutralizes the NRA's pressure, and suddenly constituent voices matter more," Bonavia said.

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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Nedra Picker contributed to this report.

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