DEFENSE ASKS FOR DELAY IN BOSTON BOMBINGS TRIAL

Original Story: nytimes.com

BOSTON — Lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the defendant in the Boston Marathon bombings, on Tuesday asked for a one-month suspension in the trial, citing the parallels between the Boston bombings and last week’s terrorist attacks in France.

A delay “would allow some time for the extraordinary prejudice flowing from these events — and the comparison of those events to those at issue in this case — to diminish,” the lawyers wrote in a motion that included references to recent news reports of sleeper cells in France and the firebombing of a German newspaper. A Westchester County Criminal Defense Lawyer is following this story closely.

The attacks in Paris began on the third of three days of jury selection in Boston last week. About 1,350 prospective jurors in the Tsarnaev case filled out screening questionnaires; Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. of Federal District Court had planned to start the questioning of individual jurors on Thursday.

The request for a delay is not the defense team’s first; it had asked at least twice before for a delay, saying it was overwhelmed by the huge number of documents from the government. It also sought to move the trial out of Boston, saying Mr. Tsarnaev could not get a fair trial here. All such requests were denied, and jury selection began Jan. 5.

The defense motion on Tuesday cited numerous news media accounts that drew comparisons between the initial terrorist attack in Paris that killed 12 people and the 2013 marathon bombings, which killed three and wounded more than 260. A Westchester County criminal defense attorney has experience representing clients in criminal accusations.

“The supposed parallels included the fact that the suspects were brothers, that they reportedly were influenced by the lectures and writings of Anwar al-Awlaki, that they were ‘homegrown’ terrorists, and that they attacked civilians in a Western city,” the defense wrote.

Representative William Keating, Democrat of Massachusetts, was quoted by USA Today as saying: “I’m watching what’s happening in Paris, and I’m thinking of Watertown,” a reference to lockdowns of suburban neighborhoods during sprawling manhunts to find the suspects.

“These parallels so widely expressed cannot be lost on potential jurors,” the defense wrote.

“Even before the Paris attacks,” the defense added, “there was no modern precedent of which we are aware for attempting to seat an impartial jury in a community that had been so recently, so grievously, and so widely affected by a single series of crimes. Now, at the very moment that this attempt is to be made, the Boston bombings are being newly placed at the center of a grim global drama.”