Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Death Penalty Trial Started Today

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev goes on trial for his life today in federal court in the so-called Boston Marathon Bomber case. First up will be jury selection, which is expected to take about three to four weeks with the trial expected to last until late May or June. The Court will be attempting to seat a jury of twelve, plus six alternates, who can devote the next six months of their lives to fairly and impartially listening to the evidence and deciding the case. Given extensive pretrial publicity and a consuming regional interest in the case, the Court may discover that it cannot find 18 people who have not prejudged the case. If that happens, the Court will have to move the trial to another district in the United States.

Meanwhile, CNN is reporting today that the government rejected a defense offer to plead guilty in return for a sentence of life without parole.

The Court has summoned over 1200 people to report over the course of the next three days at a rate of 250 people per half-day session. At each session, the prospective jurors will be given a questionnaire in which they will be directed to write down what, if anything, they recall and disclose if they have formed any opinions about the bombing and Tsarnaev’s guilt or innocence. They will also be asked to state their views about the death penalty. Copies of the completed questionnaires will be provided to counsel. Voir dire probably will begin next week after counsel have reviewed the questionnaires.

The jury selection process will take much longer than usual because the prospective jurors must be death qualified. That has to happen before the trial starts because, if the defendant is convicted, the same jury will have to decide whether to sentence the defendant to death or life without possibility of parole. By death qualification, I mean eliminating all prospective jurors who would automatically sentence the defendant to death or to life without possibility of parole without weighing the evidence admitted in mitigation against the evidence admitted in aggravation as required by the jury instructions. Opposition to the death penalty in the United States is highest in the Boston area. Therefore, do not be surprised if half or more of the prospective jurors are excused for cause because of their opposition to the death penalty. Since those prospective jurors tend to be better than others on reasonable doubt, you can reasonably expect the jury to be conviction prone.

For more information about the importance of death-qualifying a jury and how the defense will do it, please read:

Death Penalty Cases are Won or Lost During Jury Selection

Using the Colorado Method of Jury Selection in Tsarnaev Death Penalty Trial

Let’s take a brief look at the government’s case.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is accused of conspiring with his brother Tamerlan to assemble, place and detonate two IED’s (improvised explosive devices) near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The indictment alleges that the two explosions killed a child and two adults and injured scores of other people. They also are accused of ambushing and shooting to death an MIT campus police officer four days later in a failed attempt to steal his gun and with carjacking a Mercedes sedan and kidnapping the driver who escaped on foot when they stopped for gas. The driver called 911 and provided information that enabled the police to find the Mercedes and the brothers in Watertown via GPS. A dramatic shootout ensued that ended with Dzhokhar running over his brother with the Mercedes and escaping into the night. The indictment alleges that he abandoned vehicle a few blocks away and hid in a trailered boat parked in a backyard. The owner of the boat discovered him there and called 911. Police responded quickly and, after shooting up the boat, they arrested him.

If the jury finds Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty, the biggest obstacle I see to an LWOP sentence is the death of the 8-year-old child because the jury probably decided that he intentionally placed the backpack containing the IED close to the child. If so, that act is absolutely chilling and the most difficult act to forgive. To make matters worse, his sister lost a leg.

It’s difficult to imagine the emotional impact of witnessing a child’s violent death. I still suffer PTSD from looking at crime scene and autopsy photos of dead children. This jury will get to see the boy die and it will be difficult for them to be merciful, especially if they believe in the death penalty.

Dzhokhar scrawled this note on a wall inside the boat,

The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians; I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished; We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all; Now I don’t like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam…. stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.

Judy Clarke and David Bruck have their work cut out for them.

For more information about the lawyers who make up the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel, go here.