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Thread: Dzhokhar Anzorovich Tsarnaev - Federal Death Row

  1. #151
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Moslem extremists will always find something to get worked up over. We can't make sentencing decisions based on seeking not to stir them up. If we did so, it'd mean they've won.

  2. #152
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Penalty phase opens in Boston Marathon bombing trial

    BOSTON — The life-or-death phase in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev got underway Tuesday with a prosecutor showing the jury a photo of Tsarnaev giving the finger to a security camera in his jail cell three months after the attack.

    "This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — unconcerned, unrepentant and unchanged," Nadine Pellegrini told the jurors who will decide whether the 21-year-old Tsarnaev should be executed.

    "He had one more message to send," the prosecutor said.

    During the penalty phase, which is expected to last four weeks, prosecutors plan to call witnesses who lost legs or loved ones in the April 15, 2013, bombing near the finish line of the race.

    Three people were killed and more than 260 wounded in the attack. And an MIT police officer was shot to death days later as Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, tried to get away.

    With enlarged photographs of the victims behind her, Pellegrini said: "They were all beautiful, and they're all now gone." She described the killings as "unbearable, indescribable, inexcusable and senseless."

    "You know how they died. Now you need to know how they lived," the prosecutor said. "You need to know and to understand why their lives mattered."

    Tsarnaev was convicted earlier this month of all 30 charges against him during the trial's guilt-or-innocence phase.

    His lawyers, who will make the case for mercy once the prosecution has put on its witnesses, are expected to portray Tamerlan as the mastermind of the bombing. They say Tsarnaev does not deserve the death penalty because he was a 19-year-old who fell under the influence of his domineering brother.

    The 12-member jury must be unanimous for Tsarnaev to receive a death sentence; otherwise, he will automatically get life behind bars.

    Prosecutors contend Tsarnaev was a full partner with his brother in the bombing and deserves the ultimate punishment.

    About a dozen people protesting against the death penalty demonstrated outside the federal courthouse Tuesday morning.

    Earlier this week, the parents of the youngest of those killed, 8-year-old Martin Richard, urged prosecutors in a front-page letter in The Boston Globe to take the death penalty off the table.

    Also, Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, a newlywed couple severely wounded in the bombing, said life in prison would be the best outcome to assure that Tsarnaev "disappears from our collective consciousness as soon as possible."

    http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opi..._bombing_trial
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #153
    Senior Member Member ted75601's Avatar
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    Moh - I believe you are correct. I hadn't considered whether or not we would stir up the extremists. I was just thinking that we should deny him the opportunity to become a martyr. Your argument outweighs mine

  4. #154
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    Jurors see defiant Tsarnaev in photo as feds argue for death

    BOSTON (AP) — As jurors looked at a photograph of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev giving the finger to a security camera in his jail cell, a federal prosecutor described it as a defiant act by an unrepentant man who didn't care that he had killed four people, including an 8-year-old boy and a police officer.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadine Pellegrini began laying out the government's case for executing Tsarnaev, and showed the jury large, vibrant pictures of the people killed in the bombing and its aftermath. Then she revealed the photo of Tsarnaev, taken three months later in his holding cell at the federal courthouse.

    "This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — unconcerned, unrepentant and unchanged," Pellegrini on Tuesday told the jurors who will decide whether the 21-year-old former college student should be executed.

    The penalty phase in the Boston Marathon bomber's trial opened in dramatic fashion, with prosecutors portraying Tsarnaev as a coldblooded killer and "America's worst nightmare."

    The government then began trying to drive home the horror of the attack by calling to the stand witnesses who lost legs or loved ones in the April 15, 2013, bombing.

    "I remember hearing just bloodcurdling screams. I just remember looking around, just seeing blood everywhere, sort of like debris falling from the sky," said Celeste Corcoran, who made her way to the stand on two artificial limbs.

    Several jurors shed tears as the father of Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager killed in the bombing, described how he called his daughter "princess."

    "Krystle was the light of my life," William Campbell Jr. said, "every father's dream."

    He wiped away tears with a handkerchief, his voice growing hoarse as he described how she "wasn't really a girly-girl" and preferred baseball over other activities.

    Campbell described a heartbreaking mix-up that led his family to believe that Krystle had survived the bombing and was undergoing surgery. One of the doctors asked Campbell to take a walk with him to go see Krystle in her room.

    "It wasn't Krystle. I passed out on the floor," Campbell said. "I couldn't remember anything after that until I woke up about five minutes later and I realized that Krystle was gone and they made a mistake."

    Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors showed the jury a photo of a wounded Krystle writhing in agony on the ground, her mouth agape.

    Slouching in his seat at the defense table as usual, Tsarnaev stared straight ahead and showed no reaction during the proceedings.

    Three people were killed and more than 260 wounded in the bombing, carried out by Tsarnaev and his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan, to punish the U.S. for its wars in Muslim countries. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer was shot to death days later as the brothers tried to get away.

    Tsarnaev was convicted earlier this month of all 30 charges against him during the trial's guilt-or-innocence phase. His lawyers did not give an opening statement Tuesday but will do so once the prosecution has made its case.

    The defense contends Tamerlan, 26, masterminded the bombing, and Dzhokhar, then 19, fell under his influence.

    The 12-member jury must be unanimous for Tsarnaev to receive a death sentence; otherwise, he will automatically get life behind bars.

    Prosecutors have argued that Tsarnaev was a full partner with his brother and deserves the ultimate punishment.

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6a02e...ds-argue-death
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #155
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Prosecution rests in death penalty trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

    The government rested its death penalty case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at 1:10 p.m. today after jurors heard testimony from a tormented father who shared a moment of compassion with Denise Richard as her own son died in her arms.

    Steve Woolfenden, whose left leg was blown off on Boylston Street in front of the Forum restaurant April 15, 2013, and whose 3-year-old son Leo's skull was fractured, heard Denise Richard calling out, "Please," and "Martin."

    Though disturbing video aired today shows 8-year-old Martin's arms go up and down as he lays on the sidewalk, Woolfenden, speaking in a soft, halting tone, said, "I didn't see a response.

    "I saw Martin's face. I could see a boy who was fatally injured. I saw his hair singed. I saw his eyes rolled to the back of his head and his mouth was agape. I saw an immense amount of blood. I was really, really terrified," he said.

    Denise and Bill Richard, who have publicly declared they don't want Tsarnaev, 21, executed, were not in Courtroom 9 of U.S. District Court for Woolfenden's heartbreaking testimony.

    "I placed my hand on her back and Denise turned to me for a moment and asked if I was OK," Woolfenden said to audible gasps in the courtroom. "I said, 'Yes, I'm fine.' "

    Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb announced the government was resting after putting on 17 witnesses over less than three days, only one of which was challenged by Tsarnaev's legal team.

    The defense will begin their case to spare his life on Monday. When they're finished, closing arguments will follow, after which prosecutors are allowed to call rebuttal witnesses to make a second plea for his death.

    http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opi...nalty_trial_of
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #156
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    Tsarnaev’s Lawyers Focus on Chaotic Upbringing in Case Against Death Penalty

    By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JESS BIDGOOD
    The New York Times

    BOSTON — The atmosphere in Courtroom 9, the scene of almost unbearable sorrow over the last several weeks, changed abruptly Monday morning as defense lawyers formally began their attempt to save Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from the death penalty.

    David Bruck, one of Mr. Tsarnaev’s lawyers, opened the defense by acknowledging that jurors had seen more pain, horror and grief in the courtroom than they might have thought possible as victims and families have told the jury about the devastating losses and enduring pain inflicted by Mr. Tsarnaev when he set off bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013, killing three people and wounding 264 others.

    But he quickly pivoted to Mr. Tsarnaev’s brother, Tamerlan, 26, whom he described as the mastermind of the attack, with unrivaled power to influence his younger brother, known as Jahar. He suggested to the jurors that their decision on sentencing should be shaped by a question about both brothers: “If Tamerlan hadn’t been in the picture,” Mr. Bruck asked the jurors, “would Jahar have done this on his own?”

    Maintaining the focus on Tamerlan, who was killed after a shootout with the police and after his brother drove over him in a getaway car, Mr. Bruck also said that Tamerlan was committed to violence.

    “What Tamerlan’s computer shows is obsession,” he said. “He was consumed by jihad. It had become almost all he did and all he thought about,” as he plotted revenge for Muslim deaths in American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Referring to Tamerlan, he added: “The man who conceived, planned and led this crime is beyond our power to punish. Only the 19-year-old brother who helped is left.”

    But no punishment could be equal to the crimes the brothers committed, and there can be no “evening of the scales,” Mr. Bruck said. “There’s no point in trying to hurt him as he hurt because it can’t be done.”

    Instead of trying to do that, he said, the jury should sentence him to life in prison, because there, he would fade away into obscurity. Mr. Bruck showed on a screen an aerial view of the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo., which is known as ADX and is the nation’s toughest federal prison. It houses other convicted terrorists and would be where Mr. Tsarnaev would live out his years, in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.

    “He will never hurt anyone or ever be heard from again,” Mr. Bruck said. “He goes here and he’s forgotten. No more spotlight, like the death penalty brings. His legal case will be over for good,” he will not be writing an autobiography or giving interviews, and he will not become a martyr.

    Mr. Bruck then reached back into history. He described the “nomadic life” and turbulent history of his family, ethnic Chechens who were driven from their homeland in the 1940s by Stalin. Showing the jury a map with the routes of the family’s many forced dislocations across Russia and Asia, he said the map “gives you some sense of the instability and turmoil in which these children first entered the world.”

    The family eventually found its way to Cambridge, Mass., when Dzhokhar was 8 — the same age as Martin Richard, a spectator at the marathon, when he was killed by a bomb set by Mr. Tsarnaev.

    Over time, Mr. Bruck said, Mr. Tsarnaev’s family began to struggle. As his mother, Zubeidat, saw her dreams of America crumble, Mr. Bruck said, “she turned to fundamentalist religion” and convinced Tamerlan to follow along. Both parents had “severe psychiatric disorders,” he said. After a decade in Cambridge, his parents divorced and moved back to Russia, leaving Dzhokhar in Tamerlan’s care.

    The younger brother, he added, “was a good kid” caught up in a troubled family.

    The defense faces an enormous challenge as it seeks to create this alternative portrait of Mr. Tsarnaev; experts have long said that humanizing him was vital to convincing jurors to forgo the death penalty and sentence him to life in prison.

    The jury convicted Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, on April 8 of all 30 counts against him in connection with the bombings. The sentencing phase began last week, with the government calling 17 witnesses over three days to show why he deserved the death penalty. Federal prosecutors said that his crimes were particularly heinous and depraved and that he was unrepentant; jurors saw a picture of Mr. Tsarnaev in his holding cell, thrusting his middle finger in an obscene gesture at a surveillance camera.

    Mr. Bruck addressed that photo in his opening statement, saying that a fuller video showed that “that shocking gesture wasn’t quite as advertised.” In Mr. Bruck’s telling, Mr. Bruck had just had his handcuffs removed and finally had the use of his hands, so he started “fiddling with his hair,” then peered into the camera as if it were a mirror. “He flashes the peace sign, and for a split-second, sticks out his middle finger. To whom? To himself.” He dismissed the incident as having shown that Mr. Tsarnaev was simply a teenager, “acting like an immature 19-year-old.”

    A major part of the defense will focus on Mr. Tsarnaev’s youth — he was 19 at the time of the bombings. Mr. Bruck said that experts would testify about the development of the brain, and how adolescents have bad judgment and make bad decisions. They are, he said, like a powerful car, with unreliable brakes.

    The defense case is expected to take two to three weeks, after which the government will have a chance for rebuttal before closing arguments from both sides.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/us...h-penalty.html

  7. #157
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    ‘Wife of Mujahedeen’: Jury Hears New Details About Boston Bomber’s Wife

    BOSTON — In the months before the Boston Marathon bombing, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife, Katherine Russell, searched the Internet for “wife of mujahedeen” and “what are the rewards for wives of mujahedeen,” according to testimony in the bomber trial Tuesday.

    After the April 2013 attacks, Russell, who now uses her married name Karima Tsarnaeva, exchanged texts with her best friend about the carnage at the finish line and wrote, “Although a lot more people are killed every day in Syria and other places. Innocent people.”

    “I thought it was strange she was bringing that up in this situation,” the friend, Gina Crawford, told the court Monday. Crawford said she had been interviewed by the FBI twice in 2013.

    Katherine Russell has not been charged in connection with the April 15, 2013 bombings that killed three, left another 17 amputees, and wounded more than 240 others. Law enforcement officials told ABC News they are continuing to investigate what role, if any, she played in the conspiracy.

    Russell’s name has been brought up several times during the penalty phase of the trial by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team as they try to save him from the death penalty by painting his older brother Tamerlan as the architect of the attacks.

    Tamerlan, 26, was killed in the early hours of April 19, 2013 when he was shot in a wild firefight with police and then hit and dragged by his brother as Dzhokhar fled in a stolen SUV from the scene in the Boston suburb of Watertown. Tamerlan’s death capped a two-day crime spree that started with the murder of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, the carjacking of a Cambridge businessman, and the bomb and bullet battle in Watertown. Dzhokhar was discovered hours later hiding and wounded in a dry-docket boat.

    “The man who conceived, planned, and led this crime is beyond our power to punish,” defense attorney David Bruck told the court in his opening statement Monday, referring to Tamerlan. “Only the 19-year-old brother [Dzhokhar] who helped is left.”

    Katherine Russell’s mother Judith, a nurse, also took the stand for the defense Monday and said that her daughter met Tamerlan at a nightclub while she was a student at Suffolk University. Katherine brought Tamerlan home to meet her mother in a meeting that left Judith Russell unimpressed, she testified.

    “He didn’t really seem interested in getting to know us, so it didn’t start off on a really good feeling,” Judith Russell told the court. “We weren’t real happy with her choice in the relationship.”

    After Tamerlan traveled to Russia in 2012 the couple’s interest in Islam intensified, she said. With Tamerlan, she said, it bordered on “obsession.”

    “She was covering and he started to grow his body hair,” Judith Russell said. “There was progression of his belief system and passion.”

    After Tamerlan was killed, Judith woke up to her other daughter crying. Judith asked Russell’s sister, “I wanted to know what was going on, and she said, ‘Katie thinks that Tamerlan’s dead.’”

    Judith Russell said she then drove to Cambridge to pick up her daughter and granddaughter Zahira. There she called the FBI and met agents at the Cambridge police station. where she said she was questioned. Katherine moved home to Kingston, Rhode Island, for a few months after the bombings.

    Judith Russell insisted that she did not recognize her son-in-law in the photos released by the FBI the day before Tamerlan was killed.

    “I didn’t think it was him,” Russell testified. “I’d never met Dzhokhar, and I didn’t think it was Tamerlan.”

    She said her daughter is “healing” but not living at home. “Obviously it hasn’t been as hard as all the other victims in Boston, but she’s getting her life together, is more kind of lighter in spirit and more like the Katie that we know.”

    An attorney for Russell did not provide immediate comment for this report.

    Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted earlier this month of all 30 counts against him related to the bombing. Now in the sentencing phase of the case, the same jury that convicted him will decide whether he should be put to death.

    http://www.classichitsandoldies.com/...-bombers-wife/

  8. #158
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Russian relatives to testify in Boston Marathon bombing trial as defense makes case for life

    BOSTON – Russian relatives of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) are expected to testify at his trial as his lawyers continue to make their case to spare his life.

    Five family members are expected to take the witness stand Monday in federal court.

    Prosecutors urged Judge George O'Toole Jr. last week to press Tsarnaev's lawyers to make sure his relatives testify soon because 16 FBI agents have been assigned to guard and protect them while they are in the U.S. The relatives arrived in Boston on April 23.

    Tsarnaev was convicted last month of 30 federal charges in the bombings, including 17 that carry the possibility of the death penalty.

    Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish line April 15, 2013.

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/05/04...defense-makes/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #159
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Boston Marathon bomber shows emotion for 1st time at trial

    BOSTON (AP) — For the first time since his trial began four months ago, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dropped his blank, impassive demeanor and showed emotion as his Russian aunt sobbed uncontrollably and had to leave the witness stand.

    Tsarnaev, 21, grabbed a tissue and repeatedly dabbed his eyes and cheeks while his aunt became so upset that she was unable to testify on his behalf as his lawyers try to persuade a federal jury to spare his life.

    Tsarnaev had maintained an uninterested expression since his trial began in January, most of the time staring straight ahead and only occasionally glancing over at witnesses, including people who lost loved ones in the 2013 bombing.

    His aunt, Patimat Suleimanova, cried as she sat down about 10 feet from Tsarnaev. She was only able to answer questions about her name, her year of birth and where she was born before she stepped down from the witness stand after she was unable to compose herself.

    Five Russian relatives — three cousins and two aunts — took the witness stand for the defense. As Tsarnaev was led out of the courtroom before the lunch recess, he blew a kiss at the other aunt, who also cried during her testimony. The relatives all acknowledged they had not seen Tsarnaev since he was 8, when he moved to the U.S. with his family.

    Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday.

    Tsarnaev, who had lived in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan and the Dagestan region of Russia, was convicted last month of 30 federal charges in the bombings, including 17 that carry the possibility of the death penalty. He moved to the U.S. in 2002 and committed the bombings, which killed three people and wounded 260 others, when he was 19.

    Prosecutors say Tsarnaev and his radicalized older brother, Tamerlan, were equal partners in the bombing, and they have urged a jury to sentence Tsarnaev to death.

    Tsarnaev's lawyers say Tamerlan, 26, was the mastermind of the attack and lured his brother into his plan. Tamerlan died days after the bombings following a shootout with police.

    A cousin testified Monday that Dzhokhar was a kind and warm child, so gentle that he once cried while watching "The Lion King."

    "I think that his kindness made everybody around him kind," Raisat Suleimanova said through a Russian translator.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb pounced, asking her if she believes a deadly attack on innocent civilians can be considered kind. Tsarnaev's lawyer objected, and Suleimanova was not allowed to answer the question.

    Another cousin, Nabisat Suleimanova, said Dzhokhar was loved by the entire family. "He was an unusual child. He was wunderkind," she said.

    She said Dzhokhar had a softening effect on an aunt who was very stern and strict with her own children, but not with Dzhokhar.

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/16688...1st-time-trial
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  10. #160
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Helen69 View Post
    Boston Marathon bomber shows emotion for 1st time at trial
    So?
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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