Back in December, the defense team for alleged Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev filed a motion to ban any of his “supporters” from staging a demonstration outside the Joseph Moakley Courthouse. On Tuesday, Feb. 24, presiding Judge George O’Toole denied the motion, allowing these demonstrators to assemble.
The defense wrapped the term supporters in quotation marks because the group of people the motion pertained to don’t actually support Tsarnaev’s innocence per se, but rather contend that he’s at the center of conspiracy theory schemed and fueled by Uncle Sam.
“The demonstrators held signs and shouted statements to the effect, among other things, that the bombing and the survivors’ injuries were staged,” argued the defense. “Many of the ‘supporters’ who appear at the courthouse before every court proceeding advocate various conspiracy theories concerning the Marathon bombing, including that the resulting deaths and injuries have been somehow faked as a part of a government plot.”
Tsarnaev’s defense claims that these people could cause prospective jurors and others to think that Tsarnaev aligns his points of view with them “in part because of the natural but false inference” that’ll be so “vociferously advanced by demonstrators claiming to be the defendant’s ‘supporters.'”
Essentially, they’re afraid that allowing these demonstrators to set up outside the courthouse will jeopardize the integrity and impartiality of the trial.
Putting together fair and unbiased legal proceedings has been a recurring theme in this case since jury selection and voir dire commenced. The defense also filed multiple motions to relocate the trial out of Boston on the grounds that it’ll be impossible to convene a bench that’s not predisposed to a verdict of guilty.
Though Judge O’Toole repeatedly denied these motions, the U.S. Court of Appeals entertained 20-minute oral arguments from both sides as to why or why not the trial should or shouldn’t be moved out of Boston.
No ruling has been made by the appellate court as of yet.
Jury Selection resumes Tuesday morning after it was mysteriously canceled Monday due “at the discretion of the court,” a court official told BostInno. Assuming there are no further setbacks or weather delays, a panel could be seated by the end of this week and opening statements could be delivered by early next week.
