Talk:Trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Appeal

On the last day possible, Dzhokhar's legal team filed an appeal after the previous 'placeholder' appeal. 14 pages are blacked out. http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/herald_bulldog/2015/08/dzhokhar_tsarnaev_blames_social_media_in_appeal http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/08/18/in-appeal-filing-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-blames-venue-social-media-for-conviction/

The second article says that it is "social media usage by jurors", or "social media evidence", that is blacked out. This might be correct. The blacked-out portion appears to start with a new section heading, with a format that doesn't appear to represent a continuation of the previous section, but this could just be an artifact of the redaction process (which involved replacing the two partially redacted pages with an image). Whatever the redacted portion contains, it is still definitely part of the section "I. VENUE IN BOSTON PRECLUDED IMPARTIAL ADJUDICATION IN BOTH FACT AND APPEARANCE." Evidence that the second article could be correct is that on page 3 of the appeal, there is a mention of "Information concerning individual jurors’ social media", which is something that could reasonably be redacted due to privacy concerns. 2601:600:8500:B2D9:612B:3A31:E262:B037 (talk) 00:44, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Reason for trial

The article doesn't really give a good answer to why things happened, insofar as we know why. This is actually the only article I know of which describes this particular point, as (unlike James Holmes's trial, and like most trials) it was not being broadcast on TV or recorded as audio (not sure if there is a transcript of it though): http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/04/us/boston-marathon-bombing-trial/

So, why even a trial at all? Because there's disagreement over why Tsarnaev did it, Clarke said.

This article also says that Clarke asked "Why a trial?" http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/2015/03/dzhokhar_tsarnaev_trial_it_was_him_admits_his_defense_attorney.html But then the author of the article continues, "The unspoken answer: Because this jury will decide whether Dzhokhar lives or dies."

The CNN article says that Clarke did give an answer to the question. Assuming it describes exactly what she said in a short span of 10 seconds or so, she was basically saying the trial was about what influence Tamerlan Tsarnaev had. The jury was given many possible mitigating factors when deciding on a sentence; "influenced by his brother" was only one of them (and a factor that only a minority of jurors agreed with). There were many other mitigating factors, like "his female friends and relatives cared about him", "his father suffered problems from being tortured by Russians", "his mother became religious", etc. In her "reason for the trial", Clarke did not mention these; she only mentioned Tamerlan.

The idea that the reason Tamerlan was important to the trial was whether Dzhokhar should get the death penalty is also questionable when we consider that "lack of remorse" was one of the aggravating factors in sentencing: http://www.wbur.org/2015/05/14/tsarnaev-jury-sentencing-deliberations "The non-statutory aggravating factors include that Tsarnaev made statements saying others would be justified in committing acts of terrorism against the U.S. and that he lacked remorse for his actions." The NYTimes (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/sister-helen-prejean-says-tsarnaev-shows-remorse-for-boston-bombing.html): "In her testimony, Sister Prejean never used the word 'remorse' — a symbolically important term that jurors often want to hear from defendants and that can be a mitigating factor in death penalty cases." Yet after sentencing had been decided, Dzhokhar did say things that were characterized, including in this Wikipedia article, as an apology. If the purpose of the trial, and the objective of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his defense team, was to avoid the death penalty, why did Dzhokhar Tsarnaev not do things that jurors could interpret as showing remorse before it no longer mattered for the trial? This Wikipedia article does not answer this question, or even mention the acknowledgement that there was a need to explain why a trial was taking place at all, if there was no dispute about the primary accusations.

People have said that there are still many unanswered questions about the Boston marathon bombings, and it's not surprising if some things that are written about it are also confusing. Note that the NYTimes article linked above has the URL "tsarnaev-shows-remorse", but title is "Tsarnaev Expressed Sympathy", and the print edition's article was also "Expressed Sympathy". As the URL indicates, the original online article title was "Sister Helen Prejean Says Tsarnaev Shows Remorse for Boston Bombing": http://newsdiffs.org/diff/894846/895148/www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/sister-helen-prejean-says-tsarnaev-shows-remorse-for-boston-bombing.html That original article said "In a dramatic flourish at the end of the defense case, Sister Helen Prejean [...] testified on Monday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had expressed remorse for killing and maiming people at the 2013 Boston Marathon." This assertion that he expressed remorse was removed, along with the "dramatic flourish" part, because—as the corrected article says—she did not use the word "remorse".

So, if editors can agree not to revert it, this article should probably indicate that there is a degree of uncertainty about certain elements of the trial. This isn't speculation, as many people genuinely found it confusing why Dzhokhar gave what people called an 'apology' when he did. Encyclopedias don't usually directly address mysteries, but in this case it seems appropriate, as the Boston bombing was given very high publicity in the US.

More on the NYTimes article, though I'm not sure what effect it could have on this Wikipedia article. This paragraph was removed: "There was considerable debate over whether Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. of Federal District Court, who is presiding in the case, would allow Sister Prejean to testify. When the defense lawyers indicated last week that they wanted to call her, the prosecution said it would object. Its reasons for doing so were not made public." The article originally began with what the author saw as the 'big story', which was a witness saying that Dzhokhar felt "remorse". Another removed sentence was "She said she believed he was 'absolutely sincere.'" This backed up the idea of Dzhokhar having shown "remorse", and came after another removed statement that she "had been able to establish a relationship of trust with him". The idea being that he did feel remorse, but only let people he trusts know it, and he does not trust the general public. Perhaps he felt that people wouldn't believe him if he said he felt remorse, or he felt his religion made him act a certain way but secretly felt conflicted about whether following his religion was the correct course of action. In this scenario, a witness who could reveal this 'secret' could prove decisive in a trial, and the prosecution would reasonably want to prevent that witness from testifying.

But if he did not actually feel "remorse", and only felt "sympathy", then this witness would not be as influential. It means the prosecution's objection, which the public learned about without knowing what she would say (unlike in some court cases when we already know much of what a witness will say, but without being shown in court jurors would not be allowed to consider that evidence in their deliberations) becomes somewhat of a mystery, much like other elements of the trial. Possibly still important, but it is not in the interests of a news organization to include bits of information that leave readers troubled and confused, and so it was removed with the second draft (other than the minor correction that just changed "New Orleans" to "Louisiana") of the story; thus indicating that the journalist was aware of something that does not seem to make sense. This is sort of like the defense showing pictures of where Dzhokhar would have gone if he had received a life sentence, and the prosecution accusing them of making it seem as desolate and isolated as if it was on the moon; thus implying that life imprisonment isn't that bad of a sentence, and that the many people who could receive a death sentence but don't aren't treated that bad by the government, and that criminals aren't bad people since they don't receive harsh punishments. It is normally the job of the defense to imply that criminals are not bad people. 2601:600:8500:B2D9:612B:3A31:E262:B037 (talk) 02:16, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Sentencing arguments

The article, as well as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Boston Marathon bombing, doesn't really talk about this at all. What about "The defense characterized life in prison as a harsh punishment, and did not try to convince the jury that Dzohkhar's actions deserved anything less. The prosecution argued that death by lethal injection was a more appropriate punishment." Recent debates and controversies about botched executions are relevant, but not appropriate to mention in this article except maybe under a "See also" section. For example this article. I don't think the defense's decision to have female friends and relatives testify was to try to convince the jury that Dzhokhar didn't deserve a harsh punishment; as in the previous section on this talk page, that's not what the purpose of the trial was. Instead, they showed that the bombings were not because of rage at society from being unpopular with girls or something, as was reported to be the case with the 2014 Isla Vista killings. In fact I will add this to the article. 2601:600:8500:B2D9:612B:3A31:E262:B037 (talk) 04:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)