End of day: Lawyers for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev delved into anthropology yesterday — but their focus on central Asian history and folkways may have backfired.
One of the key arguments of Tsarnaev’s attorneys is that culture helps explain his participation in the Boston Marathon Bombings. On Tuesday, his lawyers called Princeton professor Michael Reynolds, who spoke at great length about the Chechens, the ethnic group to which Tsarnaev’s father, Anzor, belongs. Reynolds described the fusion of Chechen nationalism and Islamic radicalism in the 1990s — and said that in Chechen families, when the father is incapacitated, the older brother takes his place.
All that fit the defense’s theory of the case — namely, that with Anzor Tsarnaev unwell and out of the country, Tamerlan pushed Dzhokhar into terrorism. But prosecutor Bill Weinreb’s cross examination was withering. He cited case after case of the Tsarnaevs flouting Chechen cultural norms. And he quoted written statements by Reynolds that undercut his own argument. In a 2013 article, for example, Reynolds wrote of the Tsarnaevs: "Identity most assuredly is not destiny.” It was a rocky finish for one of the defense’s key witnesses.
After calling a bevy of female witnesses as they try to avoid the death penalty for their client, Tsarnaev’s attorneys switched gears at the end of today’s court session.
Tsarnaev jurors heard Tuesday afternoon from Henry Alvarez, who was on the wrestling team with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. He recalled bonding with Tsarnaev during tough training sessions and called him a “kind person” who “never caused harm to anybody.”
Also testifying: Roy Howard, Tsarnaev’s wrestling coach, who described him as “quiet” and a “hard worker.” While both men were complimentary of the Tsarnaev they knew, their description lacked the effusiveness of previous witnesses.
Update, noon: As they try to convince jurors that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was pushed into terrorism by his deceased older brother Tamerlan, Tsarnaev’s attorneys are laying bare the struggles of the brothers’ father, Anzor.
The defense also called a Russian expert to the stand to explain the impact of Chechen culture on the Tsarnaev family.
Michael Reynolds teaches Near Eastern studies at Princeton University and said that in Chechen culture — the culture of the Tsarnaev family — the role of the father is key. If the father is not present in the life of the family than that role is filled by the older brother, Reynolds testified.
Reynolds' testimony is being used by the defense to convey to the jury the enormity of the issue — Tamerlan's influence, as inferred by Reynolds, is inherent in the Chechen social code and norms.
Reynolds' testimony is being used alongside character apprasials of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by friends, teachers, friends and acqaiuntainces to demonstrate that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were very different individuals — Tamerlan led and Dzhokhar followed.
Update, Monday, May 5, 11:00 a.m.: As lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev try to avoid the death penalty, they’re drawing a stark contrast between the way he and his deceased older brother Tamerlan interacted with women.
Monday: Relatives of convicted marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev took the stand yesterday in his trial's penalty phase -- resulting in a rare show of emotion from the defendant.
Thematically, at least, Tsarnaev’s relatives didn’t tell us much we hadn’t already heard.
As a child, they said, he was shy, sweet, and kind — a “wunderkind,” as a cousin put it.
And his mother, Zubeidat, was spunky and stylish—until, unexpectedly, she got religion.
But when Zubeidat started wearing a hijab and dressing in black, another cousin said, she was “a little scared”—because many people dress that way “become Islamic extremists.”
What was new, though, was the emotion this testimony seemed to elicit from the defendant himself.
When his aunt Padimat Suleimanova sobbed and hyperventilated as she was sworn in, and was then led out of court, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev seemed to cry himself, dabbing his eyes and nose with a Kleenex.
And when his cousin Naida was on the stand, looking extremely distressed herself, Tsarnaev appeared to attempt to make eye contact with her — without her reciprocating.
For the vast majority of this trial, Tsarnaev has been stoic -- even when confronted with the human cost of his actions.
The question now is whether that shift will make Tsarnaev more sympathetic to the jury--or less.
