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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's attorneys worry client's 'supporters' could prejudice jury

D. Tsarnaev
BOSTON - Defense attorneys for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are asking a judge to "take reasonable measures" to protect Tsarnaev from the public relations impact of his own supporters.

Attorney David Bruck wrote in a court motion that when Tsarnaev's trial begins on Jan. 5, jurors will be required to walk through the same doors outside which Tsarnaev's supporters are likely to be demonstrating. 

If the public and jurors cannot walk into court without seeing "inflammatory messages," Bruck wrote, "The fairness of the defendant's trial is likely to be gravely harmed, in part because of the natural but false inference that the defendant and his counsel agree with the outrageous conspiracy theories that are being so vociferously advanced by demonstrators claiming to be the defendant's 'supporters.'"

When Tsarnaev appeared in court for a pre-trial hearing last week, supporters came to the federal courthouse in Boston, wearing T-shirts and proclaiming that Tsarnaev was set up by the FBI or CIA.


Source: MassLive, Shira Schoenberg, December 22, 2014

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