Update, 2 p.m.: The defense has begun presenting its case in the trial of admitted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
— Adam Reilly
Update, 11:04 a.m.: As the government prepares to rest its case against admitted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — jurors are hearing more graphic testimony about the attacks.
Federal prosecutors are set to rest their case in the Boston Marathon Bombing trial Monday, and then the defense will take over.
— Adam Reilly
7:00 a.m.:
The defense this week will try to convince jury members that all roads leading to the Marathon bombings, the killing of MIT police officer Sean Collier and the shootout in Watertown lead to Tamerlan Tsarneav. The older brother was a domineering force, argue Tsarnaev’s lawyers, and they are expected to call to the stand both experts and friends and acquaintances of the defendant to support this claim. Psychologist Alice Locicero says the argument is plausible.
“Dzhokhar is not a unique young man," Locicero said. "There are young people like him in many different parts of the world who started out as good kids, but there also was a great deal of vulnerability and for many kids at a time of greatest vulnerability are drawn in by someone whom I think of as a recruiter.”
The defense team is looking past the verdict stage of this trial to the sentencing itself with the goal of keeping Tsarnaev from being executed. U.S. prosecutors say his crimes were premeditated and well thought out. They say that among other inspiration, Tsarnaev took spiritual cues from Anwar Al Awlaki, an America radical cleric whose sermons calling for violent jihad were found on Tsarnaev’s computer hard drive or peripherals. Prosecutors have argued, using expert witnesses on the stand, that Al Awlaki advocated independent violent actions against the United States and that Tsarnaev was, they inferred, a lone-wolf terrorist, acting in partnership with his brother.
— Phillip Martin
