THE process of jury selection for the trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev began this week under tight security. The case could be the nation’s most closely watched terror trial since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
On April 15, 2013, Tsarnaev allegedly detonated a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing three and injuring more than 260 others. The 21-year-old ethnic Chechen and naturalized US citizen pleaded not guilty to all 30 charges made against him, including using a weapon of mass destruction and killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, as he and his brother—who died after a wild gun chase with police—tried to flee days after the bombing incident.
If convicted, Tsarnaev could get life in prison or the death penalty.
During the proceedings held on Monday, Jan. 5, Tsarnaev sat quietly with his lawyers, looking down and occasionally glancing at the judge and potential jurors. When US District Judge George O’Toole Jr. introduced him to the first group of jury prospects, asking him to stand, he acknowledged them with a slight nod.
O’Toole acknowledged that people picked to be among the 12 jurors and six alternates will already be aware of the bombing, but would be asked to read no other news accounts about the deadly blasts. Their job, O’Toole reminded prospective jurors, was to consider only the evidence presented in court.
“Mr. Tsarnaev is charged in connection with events that occurred near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, that resulted in the deaths of three people, as well as with the fatal shooting of a police officer three days later,” O’Toole told both potential groups of about 1,200 people who were summoned to federal court to be considered as possible jurors.
The first two groups of 200 people each were given initial instructions by O’Toole, and then began filling out long questionnaires to help weed out people with potential conflicts. The selected jurors and alternates would then be questioned individually by lawyers and O’Toole.
The whole jury selection process will take about three weeks, with prosecutors and defense lawyers to review which candidates they want the judge to include or exclude. The process could slow if potential jurors were affected by or connected in some way with the marathon bombing, or have objections to the death penalty.
Defense attorneys for Tsarnaev earlier sought to have the trial proceedings moved out of Boston, claiming it would be impossible to find an impartial local jury because of intense news coverage of the bombing and the fact that thousands of Boston locals attended the race or hid in their homes after the bombing, making the jury pool “tainted.” The request was blocked by O’Toole and a federal appeals court.
The Tsarnaev brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan, were Muslims whose family immigrated to the US from Russia about a decade ago. Prosecutors claim that Dzokhar Tsarnaev wrote politically-charged messages inside the hull of the dry docked boat where he was discovered hiding just days after the attack.
The messages indicated on court papers included “the US government is killing our innocent civilians” and “I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished.”
In Russia, the Tsarnaevs’ father has also expressed his distrust of the American legal system and its leadership.
Prosecutors say that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan carried out the bombings in retaliation for US actions in Muslim countries, such as in the Middle East.
Testimony in the trial is set to begin on Jan. 26, and will last three to four months. The defense is expected to argue that Dzhokhar had a “difficult childhood” and was influenced by his elder brother, whom authorities believe became strongly radicalized in the last few years of his life.
(With reports from Associated Press, Reuters)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek January 7-9, 2015 Sec. A pg.5)
