Jury selection in progress for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

[NewOrleans]

Can't c and p.  



www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/will-dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-jury-look-like

[AAM2012]

January 5, 2015
What Will Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Jury Look Like?
By Masha Gessen

On Monday, in a Boston courthouse, the federal judge George O’Toole informed two separate groups of two hundred people that “one of the grievances against King George set forth in the Declaration of Independence was that ‘he has obstructed the administration of justice’ and ‘he has made judges dependent on his will alone.’ ” This, Judge O’Toole continued, is why the Seventh Amendment mandates trials by jury. The judge was addressing prospective jurors drawn from the eastern part of Massachusetts. He will make the same remarks to four more groups of two hundred in the course of Tuesday and Wednesday. On Monday, the government’s team was seated to the judge’s left and the defendant, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and his five-lawyer team was to the judge’s right.

Very few of the twelve hundred prospective jurors resemble Tsarnaev. Almost all of them are older than the defendant, who is twenty-one; he was nineteen when he was charged with carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people, and having taken part in the murder of an M.I.T. police officer. The majority of them are white. While Tsarnaev may look white, he grew up Muslim in Boston—his family immigrated to the U.S. in 2002. Before that, he lived in Kyrgyzstan and Russia, where he was considered “black.” (The N.Y.U. professor Eliot Borenstein explains the phenomenon of that perception very well.). None of Dzhokhar’s closest friends at college, at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, was white.

Judge O’Toole went on to say that the jury must be “representative of the community.” This is a tricky issue. The U.S. government is asking for the death penalty for Tsarnaev, which means that any person who opposes the death penalty is automatically disqualified from sitting on the jury. But Massachusetts abolished the death penalty in 1984, and perennial attempts to re-institute it have failed, despite the support of a succession of governors. This suggests that a majority of Massachusetts residents oppose the death penalty—and that, therefore the jury pool represents a politically distinct minority.

Seventeen of the thirty counts against Tsarnaev carry the death penalty. If the jury convicts him of any of them, it will have to reconvene to determine whether he will be put to death or sentenced to life in prison. One of the defense attorneys, Judy Clarke, specializes in turning the threat of the death penalty into life in prison: her clients Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber), Eric Rudolph (the Atlanta Olympics bomber), and Jared Loughner (who killed six people while attempting to assassinate Representative Gabrielle Giffords) all pleaded guilty in exchange for life in prison. The most surprising thing about the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial is that Clarke and her colleagues have not negotiated a plea bargain for their client. Most observers expected one, both because they reasonably assume that the defense cannot win and because the F.B.I. and the police may face more difficult questions during the trial than they are prepared to answer. But it is possible that Clarke could not get her client to plead or that no plea bargain was on offer, precisely because the conviction is virtually assured.

After about twenty minutes, Judge O’Toole had prospective jurors fill out a lengthy questionnaire; on Monday, it took most of them well over an hour to finish it. Later this week and into next, both the defense and prosecution will be sorting through the responses to identify a hundred people who will be called back to be interviewed. If the jury-selection process for the trials of Tsarnaev’s two friends who have already been convicted is any indication, much of the questioning by the defense will focus on identifying jurors who are not unduly biased in favor of law-enforcement witnesses. Most of the government’s witnesses are likely to be F.B.I. agents and police officers; the defense will probably marshal friends, neighbors, family members, and experts, who will testify to Tsarnaev’s difficult childhood and inability to stand up to his brother. Many of the potential jurors will likely admit that they are inclined to believe the officers over the civilians.

Another line of questioning will attempt to single out people who strongly identify with the victims of the bombing, even though they do not know any of them personally (a personal connection would disqualify them automatically). The defense team has argued repeatedly the sense of communal injury in Massachusetts and particularly in Boston is so strong that Tsarnaev cannot get a fair trial here, just as it was once judged impossible for Timothy McVeigh to get a fair trial in Oklahoma. Judge O’Toole and an appeals court have rejected these claims.

This means that the eighteen jurors who are eventually seated will face the difficult, if not impossible, task of separating their duty of representing the community as jurors from the outrage they may feel as members of a community that was attacked, by proxy, when the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon. The prosecution and, likely, its witnesses will repeatedly stress this sense of collective injury. Tsarnaev is accused of attacking America, and he may believe he did. The government will, in effect, ask the jury over and over again, “Are you with us or against us?”

 

[penguingrrl]

I often wonder how tey manage to get a jury for this high profile a crime. I mean, I can't imagine there is anyone in tht area without preconceived notions about it.

[havarti]

What does he gain by pleading not guilty?

[cinnamoncox]

It's going to be something, that's for sure. The judge is instructing potential jurors to turn off the news or put the paper down or shut down the convo if/when it comes up. Um, ok, it's been a freaking year, they've been exposed already. Plus they're likely from here so they lived it as it went down.

I have a family member in HI who had all sort to say about it during the week it was all happening. He was so off base and utterly clueless as to what was going on here, but had all these grand ideas and opinions and who did what wrong etc. Like so clueless it was laughable if it wasn't so serious.

They're taking security very seriously too. Coast guard in the water, police dogs up the wazoo (bomb sniffers no doubt).

[Velar Fricative]

Jan 6, 2015 8:58:06 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

I often wonder how tey manage to get a jury for this high profile a crime. I mean, I can't imagine there is anyone in tht area without preconceived notions about it.

I think about this too. But then I also think about all the people who don't pay attention to any kind of news, anywhere at all and I don't think I would want them as my peers either...

[cinnamoncox]

Jan 6, 2015 8:58:06 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

I often wonder how tey manage to get a jury for this high profile a crime. I mean, I can't imagine there is anyone in tht area without preconceived notions about it.

I don't know if I would say preconceived notions per se, more like lived here when it happened, so they were exposed to the 24/7 live action if it all going down. If that makes sense. It was a wild week. For sure. To put it mildly. I think they'll get a good jury pool but I think it'll take a long time. So so many people were touched by it, from all over the state (and I'm sure out of state too, but they won't be potential jurors, I just don't want to leave them out), that will considerably cut down on potentials.

And it took place in Boston (the bombings obv), man hunt all over, finally ravaging Watertown, the MIT officer killed means Cambridge was touched by it, plus he is from Stoneham so they're touched by it, the victims were from all over the state,etc.

So it's going to be a challenge. So many have friends and family who either were running it, or working it, or working in stores around it, etc.

It's going to be very interesting to see how it pans out. One of the times he was in court, his "groupies" we're outside with signs for him and in support of him, and victims and their families reacted pretty strongly.

[jillboston]

Jan 6, 2015 11:30:35 GMT -5 havarti said:

What does he gain by pleading not guilty?

They are going to have a rich field of stuff to appeal - even at this stage. Refusal of change of venue being one of them.