Almost two years after a pair of homemade bombs brought terror and carnage to the Boston Marathon, the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday opened with the dramatic admission by his lead defense lawyer that her client had in fact set off the blasts that killed three people and injured scores of others.
“It was him,” lawyer Judy Clarke said bluntly of her client, who sat slouched in a chair at the defense table.
She added that Tsarnaev, 21, would not sidestep responsibility for his actions, which she described as “inexcusable.”
Photo: Reuters
However, he did not act alone, she said. All the horror and grief of the bombing was “caused by a series of senseless, horribly misguided acts carried out by two brothers,” she said, naming Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, 26, who is dead.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was led on “a path borne of his brother, created by his brother and paved by his brother,” Clarke said.
The stark admission of culpability was made in service of her ultimate goal — to persuade the jury to spare Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death penalty and sentence him instead to life in prison.
However, it was the persuasive powers of his elder brother and the consequences of homegrown terrorism that dominated the opening of a gut-wrenching trial that is expected to last through June, as it drags Boston and the US back to the marathon finish line and the scene of the worst terrorist attack on US soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
In the opening statements, two portraits of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev emerged.
Prosecutors argued that he was an intellectually and emotionally committed “terrorist” bent on avenging US military campaigns in the Muslim world, partly to help him reach “paradise” after his death. Clarke said that her client was a fairly normal teenager, interested in Facebook, girls and cars, who was under the heavy sway of the elder brother he loved and respected.
US District Court Judge George O’Toole limited the degree to which the defense could bring up the defendant’s elder brother in this phase of the trial, which decides guilt or innocence.
However, Tamerlan Tsarnaev seemed to hover over the proceedings, present even in death, as the families of victims who died and survivors who were maimed by the blasts crowded into the packed courtroom, as the much-anticipated trial finally got underway.
The government’s lawyers, who spoke first, sought preemptively to smother any sympathy Clarke might stir up for her client.
Assistant US Attorney William Weinreb offered descriptions of how the bombs had ripped the flesh off spectators at the marathon and sent body parts flying in the air.
He described the precise way in which shrapnel had lacerated the three victims who died, as their families listened. Martin Richard, eight, “bled to death” on the sidewalk; Lingzi Lu, 23, had “the inside of her stomach pouring out,” and Krystle Campbell, 29, had “gaping holes” in her body.
The government later called five eyewitnesses, three of whom suffered grievous injuries. All described the carnage after the bombing, their testimony accompanied by gruesome photos and video of victims lying in pools of blood.
The defense chose not to cross-examine any of the victims who testified.
During his opening statement, which lasted about 50 minutes, Weinreb cast the brothers as “partners in crime,” saying they planned the bombings together and carried them out together.
The killings led Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to believe that he “had taken a step toward reaching paradise,” Weinreb said.
The government also laced its narrative with references to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as cold-hearted. Shortly after the bombings, while paramedics were still trying to resuscitate Martin Richard, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev went to Whole Foods and casually mulled what type of milk to buy.
For the next few days, “he hung out with friends, partied and tweeted: ‘I’m a stress-free kind of guy,’” Weinreb said.
Tsarnaev showed his true colors during the shootout in Watertown with the police, Weinreb added, lobbing pressure-cooker bombs at the officers. He said that after the shootout, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev drove at the police at top speed, “trying to mow them down.”
“The defendant ran right over his brother and dragged his body about 50 feet down the street,” Weinreb said of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Clarke, whose opening lasted just 20 minutes, argued against the government’s interpretation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s motive. She cast him as a typical teenager — so typical that he felt something as ordinary as sibling rivalry, saying that when he was hiding in a dry-docked boat before his capture, he had written revealing words about his brother, she said.
“He expressed he was jealous of his brother who achieved martyrdom,” Clarke said, adding that he wished he could achieve it, too.
“It was Tamerlan who self-radicalized,” she said. “It was Dzhokhar who followed.”
Tamerlan had influence over his younger brother because of his age, their culture and the force of his personality, Clarke added.
Clarke’s blunt, even surprising admission about her client’s actions seemed to be an effort to telegraph to the jurors that she would not waste their time with falsehoods, in part to earn their trust.
As she closed, Clarke pleaded with jurors to keep an open mind, especially during the second phase of the trial, when they consider the sentence.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese