Skip to footer

Judge grants marathon bomber two-month trial delay

The trial for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will begin Jan. 5 instead of Nov. 3. The judge did not move the trial from Boston, and said there was no reason to assume a fair jury could not be selected.

|
Federal Bureau of Investigation/AP/File
A judge has granted a two-month trial delay for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but denied a defense request to move his trial.
  • By Associated Press Associated Press

| Boston

A judge granted a two-month trial delay on Wednesday for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but denied a defense request to move his trial from Boston.

Judge George O'Toole ruled that the trial will begin Jan. 5 instead of Nov. 3, but said there's no reason to assume in advance that a fair jury cannot be selected in Massachusetts.

Defense attorneys had asked to have the trial moved to Washington, D.C., citing extensive media coverage and evaluations of public sentiment by their experts. They also asked for a trial delay until at least September 2015, saying they have not had time to prepare for a November trial.

"Although media coverage in this case has been extensive, at this stage the defendant has failed to show that it has so inflamed and pervasively prejudiced the pool that a fair and impartial jury cannot be empaneled in this District," O'Toole wrote.

He also wrote that a short delay is warranted because of the large amount of evidence, but said "An additional delay of ten months as requested by the defendant does not appear necessary."

Tsarnaev, 21, has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors say he and his now-deceased older brother placed two pressure cooker bombs that exploded near the marathon's finish line, on April 15, 2013. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police several days later.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Judge grants marathon bomber two-month trial delay
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0924/Judge-grants-marathon-bomber-two-month-trial-delay
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe