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Boston Marathon Bombing Trial Starts Jan. 5
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
January 3, 2015
All Rights Reserved.
Starting the long-awaited murder trial of
21-year-old surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, all
eyes are on his federal public defender Judy Clarke. Clarke’s well known defending
federal murder suspects against the death penalty. Calling Clarke “a legendary death
penalty defense lawyer,” CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin expected Clarke to
perform her magic as she did defending “Unibomber” Ted Kazinski and Tucson,
Ariz. assassin Jared Lee Loughner who shot Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) in the
head Jan. 8, 2011 before killing U.S. District Court Judge Jobn Roll and five
other bystanders. Both killers
serve life sentences in federal prisons.
Clarke hopes to keep Dzhokhar from the death penalty on the eve of what
promises to be a sensational federal murder trial. Once the trial ends, there will be a
separate penalty-phase trial.
On April 15, 2013, Dzhokhar and his now deceased 26-year-old brother,
detonated pressure cooker bombs loaded with shrapnel, killing three and maiming
264 victims, many losing limbs.
Dzhokhar’s defense team led by Clarke have tried to get a change of venue,
believing he couldn’t get a fair trial in Boston. With all requests for delays and
change-of-venues denied by U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole Jr.,
Dzhokhar’s trial starts Monday, Jan. 5. Boston’s U.S. Atty. Carmen Ortiz sought and received U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr.’s
blessings to seek the federal death penalty.
Ortiz seeks the death penalty citing the malice-of-forethought or
pre-meditation to the Tsarnaev’s brother’s April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon
twin-bombings. Federal prosecutors
have put out Dzhokhar’s scrawled confessions while hiding inside a dry-docked
boat in the driveway of a Watertown home.
While hiding underneath a tarp inside the boat, Dzhokhar scrawled, (1)
“We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all; (2) “Now I don’t like killing
innocent people, it is forbidden in Islam but due to said [unintelligible] it is
allowed; (3) “Stop killing innocent people and we will stop; (4) “The U.S.
government is killing our innocent civilians; and (5) I can’t stand to see such
evil go unpunished,” all incriminating statements Ortiz plans to use at trial. Clarke, Dzhokhar’s lead attorney, plans to present her client as a brainwashed victim of
his deceased older brother Tamerlan, killed by Boston or federal law enforcement
April 19, 2013. Dzhokhar’s defense team hopes to show a federal jury that he
felt under the “domination and control” of his older brother, hoping to spare
his life when the penalty phase begins. Dzhokhar’s defense team wants to show
the jury his post-traumatic stress.
Dzhokhar’s etched statements confess motive to the April 15, 2013 Boston
Marathon bombings but provide mitigating circumstances for prosecutors pushing
the death penalty. While
victims’ families want the death penalty, the rest of humanity benefits by
Dzhokhar studied by legal scholars and social scientists serving a life
sentence. While it’s true that
Dzhokhar’s statements while hiding from police confirm his involvement in the
bombings, they also show mitigating circumstances, revealing his obsession with
jihad or holy war. “The U.S.
government is killing our innocent civilians,” referring to U.S. wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan causing the deaths of innocent Muslims. Like 44-year-old army psychiatrist
Nidal Malik Hasan, whose rampage a Fort Hood, Texas killed 13 soldiers Nov. 5,
2009, Hasan also believed the U.S. military was killing Muslims overseas.
While initially denied by the Obama White House, Hasan had an email
exchange with Yemen-based al-Qaeda Anwar al-Awlaki, recruiting and converting
him to radical Islam. Dzhokhar’s older brother Tamerlan spent six months in Russia, visiting the North Caucusus
region, including Dagestan in 2012, prompting Russian’s FSB [formerly the KGB]
to warn the FBI of his potential radicalization.
After returning to the Boston area July 17, 2012, Tamerlan appeared more
radicalized, ejected from a Cambridge mosque for shouting down an Imam for
comparing the Prophet Mohammed to civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Less than one year later April 15,
2013, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar were caught on videotape placing explosive-strewn
backpacks at Boylston St. locations near explosions. Dzhokhar’s defense team plans
to admit to his involvement but claim he was brainwashed by his older brother.
When Ortiz leads a team of federal prosecutors seeking the death
penalty against 21-year-old Dzhokhar Jan. 5, the evidence presented undermines
their case. Already establishing
that he co-perpetrated the Boston Marathon twin blasts with his now deceased
brother Tamerlan, Dzhokhar’s own incriminating words demonstrate that his motive
was to defend Muslims in war-torn lands.
Dzhokhar’s defense team plans to establish his family background fleeing
from war-ravaged Chechnya, transferring his father’s trauma to his two boys. Whether or not Dzhokhar suffered
from post-traumatic stress or was coerced into going along with Tamerlan, his
defense attorneys will argue he’s too young and impressionable for the death
penalty. When prosecutors use his self-radicalized statements as proof of guilt, they’ll also
serve as mitigating circumstances against capital punishment.
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