BOSTON — The Boston Marathon bombing trial gets underway Monday as potential jurors begin arriving at federal court, where a panel of 12 will ultimately decide whether 21-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is executed.

More than 1,000 residents of eastern Massachusetts, a region still scarred by the deadly attacks of April 2013, will fill out jury selection questionnaires. A litany of queries boils down to two essentials: Can you be fair? Can you impose the death penalty if conditions are met?

Seating a qualified jury will be difficult, court watchers say, and could take weeks. It's as important as anything that might happen in the courtroom after jurors take their seats.

"This jury selection process is going to be like very few others in a federal criminal case," said Jeremy Sternberg, a former federal prosecutor who is a partner at Holland & Knight in Boston. "It's going to take a very long time. ... Its importance cannot be overstated."