Defense likely to try to show Dzhokhar Tsarnaev manipulated by brother
By Noreen O’Donnell
Twenty months after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev crawled out of a boat in a backyard in Watertown, Massachusetts, bloodied after a shoot-out with police that killed his older brother, the now 21-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings is to go on trial.
Jury selection in the federal death penalty case began Monday in Boston after the judge rejected repeated appeals from his lawyers to delay the trial and to move it elsewhere…
…Observers say the defense could be trying to show that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was so in thrall of his older brother that he had little choice but to participate in the bombings.
Brad Bailey, a criminal defense lawyer in Boston, said it appeared from court filings that Tsarnaev's lawyers were focused on possible mitigating factors that include emotional disturbance, potential diminished mental capacity, lack of criminal record and his youth.
"We've seen a lot of requests that suggest that they are trying to obtain evidence that would show that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was either afraid of his older brother and afraid not to do things that he may have been directed to do or that he was potentially brainwashed by his older brother," Bailey said…
[For the full story visit: NECN.com]
By Noreen O’Donnell
Twenty months after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev crawled out of a boat in a backyard in Watertown, Massachusetts, bloodied after a shoot-out with police that killed his older brother, the now 21-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings is to go on trial.
Jury selection in the federal death penalty case began Monday in Boston after the judge rejected repeated appeals from his lawyers to delay the trial and to move it elsewhere…
…Observers say the defense could be trying to show that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was so in thrall of his older brother that he had little choice but to participate in the bombings.
Brad Bailey, a criminal defense lawyer in Boston, said it appeared from court filings that Tsarnaev's lawyers were focused on possible mitigating factors that include emotional disturbance, potential diminished mental capacity, lack of criminal record and his youth.
"We've seen a lot of requests that suggest that they are trying to obtain evidence that would show that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was either afraid of his older brother and afraid not to do things that he may have been directed to do or that he was potentially brainwashed by his older brother," Bailey said…
[For the full story visit: NECN.com]