Lawyers for Boston Marathon Bomber Argue He Shouldn’t Have Been Tried in Boston
“Forcing this case to trial in a venue still suffering from the bombings was the District Court’s first fundamental error”
Lawyers for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are appealing and trying to reverse his death sentence. They claim that he shouldn’t have been tried in Boston because the crime was too traumatic for everyone in the city to be objective.
Laurel J. Sweet reports at the Boston Herald:
Lawyers: Tsarnaev ‘should not have been tried in Boston’
Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s appellate team presented their oft-delayed opening argument Thursday, urging sparing him a federal execution and allowing him to be retried for the 2013 Patriots Day terror attack that killed an 8-year-old boy and two women.
Their premise is summed up in the opening line: “This case should not have been tried in Boston.
“Forcing this case to trial in a venue still suffering from the bombings was the District Court’s first fundamental error, and it deprived Tsarnaev of an impartial jury and a reliable verdict, in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments,” the brief states.
The partially redacted document filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit spans 1,124 pages, nearly half of which is the 500-page opening brief alone.
Absent a new trial, Tsarnaev’s team is asking the Appeals Court to reverse his death sentence and order a punishment of life imprisonment.
Tsarnaev, 25, has been in solitary confinement at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., since his 2015 conviction.
Tsarnaev’s trial attorneys made repeated bids for a change of venue.
Tsarnaev will get no sympathy from Massachusetts residents, who still remember the horror of the bombing five years later. The term “Boston Strong” still carries powerful and common meaning in the Bay State.
Dan Glaun of Mass Live has more on the arguments being made by Tsarnaev’s legal team:
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s older brother lured him into life of terrorism, lawyers for convicted Boston Marathon bomber say in appeal
Attorneys for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev say in his appeal that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was responsible for his little brother’s turn toward terrorism.
They argue that the federal judge in Dzhokhar’s trial wrongly prohibited them from introducing evidence about Tamerlan’s alleged role in a 2011 Waltham triple homicide.
“The appropriate sentence in this case turned, in large part, on a single question: Why did Tsarnaev commit these terrible crimes? He was a 19-year-old college sophomore, beloved by his teachers and friends, described as ‘kind,’ ‘hardworking,’ ‘humble,’ and ‘respectful’—captain of his high-school wrestling team and volunteer ‘Best Buddy’ to special-needs children. What turned him down this misbegotten path?” Tsarnaev’s attorneys wrote in the appeal.
The answer, they argue, was his brother Tamerlan, who was killed after being shot during a gun battle with law enforcement and then run over by an SUV driven by a fleeing Dzhokhar, according to federal prosecutors.
The jury on Twitter isn’t buying it. Here are some thoughts via Twitchy:
Boston Marathon bomber appeals conviction, death sentence https://t.co/yuYCYM9qN8 pic.twitter.com/yHci5RVNBX
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 27, 2018
Wait, they didn’t use the glamour shot from @RollingStone?
— Dirk Hardpec (@bone_crudmeal) December 27, 2018
String him up !
— RAB (@_RAB___) December 27, 2018
Fry him
— gary (@ridgely) December 27, 2018
Request denied.
— pistrix (@pistrix) December 27, 2018
strap a pressure-cooker full of nails to his back and tell him to run.
— SuperPatriot (@SuperPatriotMax) December 27, 2018
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Comments
Requesting a change of venue for a trial because of prejudicial local attitudes is a legal tactic that has been used time and again over the years. OJ’s murder trial is one example. To the best of my knowledge, requesting a change of venue is done BEFORE the trial,not YEARS AFTER the trial.
The defense had the opportunity before the trial to request a change of venue, and did not do so.
His attorneys should win the chutzpah of the year award.
Perhaps he should have been tried at Gitmo.
Motion denied.
Now, had he been an employee of Debbie Sargent Schultz or Bob “anthrax” Mueller, then he would have options here.
Never forget this murderer and maimer was Rolling Stone Magazine’s hero:
https://www.rferl.org/a/tsarnaev-rolling-stone-cover/25049374.html
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