Boston Marathon trial drama: Defense gets ready to slam feds’ case

Boston Marathon trial drama: Defense gets ready to slam feds’ case

The team, which has already admitted to the guilt of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, wants to spare him the death penalty and will seek to poke holes in the prosecution's case.

It’s now the defense’s turn to take the spotlight in the Boston Marathon bombing trial, as prosecutors must find some way to convince a jury not to give the death penalty to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose lawyer has already acknowledged guilt despite a not-guilty plea.

Prosecutors will rest their case against Tsarnaev next week and turn proceedings over to the defense, who admitted that Tsarnaev, along with his late older brother Tamerlan, set off the bombs near the finish line in April 2013, killing three people and injuring 264, according to a Reuters report.

Defense penalty specialist Judy Clarke opened the trial March 4 by bluntly admitting that “it was him” who set off the bombs along with his brother, but she contended that the 21-year-old Tsarnaev was just an assistant to the real mastermind, his brother Tamerlan, who was killed by police — and possibly by Dzhokhar, who ran over him as he fled the scene in a vehicle after being cornered shortly after the bombings.

The goal of the defense team is not to win Dzhokhar’s freedom, but to get him a sentence of life in prison. They won’t be able to make that until he is determined guilty in the trial, so in the meantime, they will use the proceedings to poke holes in the prosecution’s case and try to boost 26-year-old Tamerlan’s influence as much as possible, according to a Reuters report.

One example of the defense’s strategy came last week when the prosecution brought up an FBI report that metal BB pellets, similar to ones that were packed in the two bombs, had been discovered in Tsarnaev’s college dorm room. The defense asked if the search had turned up any actual firearms or just the BBs, and the FBI agent stated that no guns had been found.

Such questions are intended to plant doubt about Tsarnaev’s role, as well as the integrity of the investigation itself, according to legal experts as quoted by Reuters.

Clarke is famous for defending “unabomber” Ted Kacynski and 1996 Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph. She was also a defense consultant to infamous al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui, who helped carry out the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

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