End of day: Wednesday afternoon, jurors in the trial of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev heard about the prison where Tsarnaev will likely spend his life — if he’s not put to death— and the lack of human contact he’d experience there.
The description of ADX, as the maximum-security federal facility in Florence, Colorado is known, came from Mark Bezy, a veteran of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He said Tsarnaev would live in a separate wing for prisoners subject to so-called “special administrative measures,” with sharp limits on phone communication, mail, and in-person visits. Those are privileges, not rights, Bezy added, and can be removed if a prisoner tries to circumvent them. They’re also renewable in perpetuity.
— Adam Reilly
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The trial of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev featured testimony Wednesday from a defense witness beamed in live from the U.S. embassy in Kazakhstan.
Elmirza Khozhugov said that he nurtured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a child and as he grew into a boy. He said Every day he would talk to Dzhokhar about how he was doing in school, and how he should be doing. Khozhugov also told the court that he was an expert in Chechen culture and confirmed the defense's point that the oldest son would play a domineering role in the Chechen life.
But the government, in its redirect, evoked the name of Ruslan Tsarni, the youngest brother of Tsarnaev's father, who came to the United States and made a successful life. Tsarni also supported the Tsarnaev family through hard times and during their move to the U.S., thus undermining the defense argument about the role of the youngest and oldest within Chechen families. Khozhugov agreed that Tsarni's role was pivotal in this respect.
— Phillip Martin
