Jury selection has begun in the federal death penalty case of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Judge Andrew Napolitano said on "America's Newsroom" today that the court has ordered 1,200 people across the eastern half of Massachusetts to be interviewed as possible jurors.

"The judge's job is to find from that 1,200 a pool of 60 who are willing to impose the death penalty under the right circumstances, have an open mind about whether or not this young man is guilty and an open mind about whether if he is guilty he should receive the death penalty," Judge Nap said.

He explained that once those 60 potential jurors are picked, the lawyers will begin to exclude people for various reasons until they have 12 remaining.

Judge Nap added that those 12 will be the jurors, and another six people will be the alternates in the event any of the 12 need to be replaced.

"The evidence of his guilt is overwhelming," Judge Nap said. "The government has a signed confession, and it has a video of him placing the crock-pot which contained the bomb in front of a little boy who was killed."

Video and full transcript