Summary: Bids to delay and move the terrorism trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have failed after rulings from a judge in Boston.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, is scheduled to head to a federal terrorism trial beginning on January 5, according to Bloomberg.
Tsarnaev lost his last-ditch effort to delay the trial after his best friend pled guilty in a related gun case. He also lost a bid to move the trial to New York or Washington from Boston. The defense argued that moving the trial is necessary in order to find unbiased jurors. Tsarnaev could face the death penalty if he is convicted.
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The trial will be presided over by U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. in Boston. Judge O’Toole issued the decisions from earlier this week and said that a formal opinion is going to be posted at a later time.
After Judge O’Toole made his ruling, the defense lawyers for Tsarnaev asked an appeals court to overturn his change of venue ruling. They also asked the appeals court to delay the trial until a higher court rules.
Tsarnaev is accused of detonating two bombs in the spectator areas close to the finish line on April 15, 2013. Three victims were killed and 260 more were wounded. There were previous efforts to delay and move the trial to a new location, all of which failed.
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The defense team for Tsarnaev asked for the trial to be delayed until September after a former high school classmate of Tsarnaev agreed to help in his prosecution. The friend, Stephen Silva, agreed to a plea deal on December 19 on gun and heroin charges.
Government lawyers are convinced that Silva owned the gun that Tsarnaev’s late older brother, Tamerlan, used to murder a police officer following the bombings. Silva has not been accused of being involved in the shooting or the bombings.
The defense claimed that local news media have turned possible jurors against Tsarnaev with stories that compare him to militants with the Islamic State, which is why they asked to have the trial moved to a new location.
Prosecutors working the case clam that Tsarnaev was inspired by al-Qaeda. On the other side of things, his defense attorneys do not deny he was involved, but are going to put most of the blame on Tamerlan in an effort to avoid death.
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