WATCH: Nearly two years after the Boston Marathon bombing, the trial of the only surviving suspect is about to get underway. It’s a long complicated process, based around one big question: Should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get the death penalty. Jackson Proskow reports.
Quick facts:
- Three people died and more than 260 other were injured when homemade bombs were detonated near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon.
- A four-day manhunt led to the shooting death of suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The other suspect, his younger brother Dzhokhar, was captured by police with several injuries after he was tracked to a boat in the backyard of a suburban Boston home.
- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, now 21, faces 30 federal charges, including the bombing of a place of public use resulting in death and use of a weapon of mass destruction. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Lawyers in Boston are weeding through a field of 1,200 potential jurors to find the 12 men and women who will decide the fate of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The first stage of the jury selection is expected to be wrapped up within three days, but the actual selection process could take up to three weeks, with the court proceedings beginning on Jan. 26. The trial is expected to last three to four months.
READ MORE: Jury selection starting in Boston Marathon trial
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During the trial, the prosecution will choose from a list of 732 witnesses — 142 civilian witnesses and 590 law enforcement personnel — and introduce as many as 1,238 pieces of evidence, The New York Times reported. The defence is expected to call people who are familiar with Tsarnaev, his late brother and their family.
Is a fair trial possible?
The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, where the trial is being held, is located less than three kilometres from where the bombs went off.
Tsarnaev’s attorneys certainly tried to argue that a fair trial would not be possible if it took place in Boston. His lawyers made several unsuccessful requests to have the trial moved to Washington, D.C.
But, Judge George O’Toole ruled in September it would not be moved.
“Although media coverage in this case has been extensive, at this stage the defendant has failed to show that it has so inflamed and pervasively prejudiced the pool that a fair and impartial jury cannot be empaneled in this District,” he wrote in his decision, according to WCVB Boston.
Cullen refuted that claim in his Sunday column.
“As much as they cite that case, they never seem to quote McVeigh’s lawyer supporting their argument. No wonder. I talked to McVeigh’s lawyer, Stephen Jones, and he disputes any suggestion that the community wide trauma and devastation in Boston was anywhere close to what occurred in Oklahoma City in 1995 when McVeigh blew up the federal building, killing 168 people, including 19 children,” Cullen wrote.
McVeigh was ultimately sentenced to death for the 1995 attack and executed by lethal injection in 2001.
Will Tsarnaev get the death penalty?
That is the big question of the trial. it’s on the table, but it will require a unanimous decision from the jury.
Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northwestern University, told NPR the “case is not about guilt.”
“In my mind, this case is really about whether or not he’s going to get the death penalty,” he said.
Tsarnaev’s defence lawyer, Judy Clarke, plans to argue Tsarnaev was manipulated by his brother, Tamerlan, CBS News reported, referencing court documents.
“What this defense wants to show is whether or not this was a young man who was influenced and under the influence of his older brother who was the master mind,” said CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman.
If Tsarnaev wants to avoid the death penalty, Clarke may be his best bet.
She’s the defence lawyer who represented Unabomber Ted Kazinski, Jared Lee Loughner, the man who shot and injured former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others in 2011, and Eric Rudolph, who was convicted for setting off a bomb during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, killing two people and wounding more than 100 others.
All three men avoided the death penalty.
Massachusetts hasn’t had the death penalty since 1984 — on a state level. Tsarnaev is facing 30 federal charges and he could receive the death penalty as punishment for any of 17 of those offences.
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