Attorneys want Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s federal trial moved to Washington, D.C.
Attorneys for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev want the Boston Marathon bombing suspect’s federal trial moved to Washington, D.C. because potential jurors from the Massachusetts city are “most prejudiced,” a court filing Wednesday said.
A survey of potential trial sites found the nation’s capital is “reasonably close (to Boston), accessible to witnesses and interested persons, and able to logistically accommodate a trial of this magnitude.”
The city, among other potential sites like Springfield, Mass. or Manhattan, also had the lowest percentages of people who think the 20-year-old suspect is definitely guilty, people who would want the death penalty, and among the least number of people who participated in the 2013 marathon or know people who did.
Boston, meanwhile, has “an overwhelming presumption of (Tsarnaev’s) guilt” due to a large number who were in or at that year’s marathon.
Tsarnaev is accused of planting two pressure cooker bombs near the marathon finish line on April 15, 2013. The resulting twin blasts killed three and injured more than 260 people and sparked a manhunt for Dzhokhar and his alleged accomplice, brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26.
Tamerlan was killed during a shootout with police, while a wounded Dzhokhar was pulled from a boat later that same day in a Watertown backyard.
Tsarnaev faces 30 charges and could be executed if convicted.
The manhunt forced Bostonians to shelter in place “during the climactic final day of the search,” meaning even more of the potential jury pool was affected by the suspect, his attorneys said.
Though trials are seldom moved, the high-profile death penalty case against terrorist Timothy McVeigh was moved from Oklahoma City, the defense attorneys noted.
“The community impact here is even greater than that present in McVeigh,” the filing says.
The Boston Marathon bombings transfixed the nation and terrified Bostonians, many of whom have already decided they think Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is guilty.
Judge George O’Toole on Wednesday also blasted the prosecution for arguing Tsarnaev, who was born and lived in Kyrgyzstan and Russia, is more deserving of the death penalty because he wasn’t born an American citizen.
“Just seven months after swearing an oath to defend his adopted country and stand by his fellow Americans, Tsarnaev violated the oath by attacking America and terrorizing and murdering people on American soil,” U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office wrote in an April filing.
“He did so, by his own account, to punish America for the actions of American soldiers who, in fulfilling their own oaths to protect and defend the Constitution, were waging a war against terrorism overseas.”
Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to 30 terrorism-related charges. He is scheduled to go on trial in November.
Source: America Daily News