Prosecutors: Tsarnaev got fair trial, does not deserve appeal on death sentence

Federal prosecutors said Thursday Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev does not deserve a new trial in his appeal, arguing, among other issues, that evidence surrounding a 2011 triple murder in Waltham was not relevant to whether he deserved a death sentence.

The brief, filed in response to Tsarnaev’s appeal, says in a heavily-redacted section that evidence surrounding the murder, in which his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a suspect, “had little or no relevance to whether Tsarnaev deserved the death penalty.”

Prosecutors say the U.S. District Court appropriately denied Dzhokhar Tsarnaev access to the reports and recordings with Tamerlan’s friend, Ibragim Todashev, who implicated Tamerlan in the murders in an interview with FBI agents before he was shot and killed by one of the agents in 2013.

The 431-page brief, signed by William Glaser, U.S. Department of Justice Appellate Section attorney, comes in response to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s 1,126-page brief filed in January, and a supplemental brief provided by Tsarnaev’s lawyers earlier this month.

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

The court filing addresses 15 issues raised in the appeal, among them whether the U.S. District Court in Boston abused its discretion by denying Tsarnaev’s motions for a change of venue, whether testimony about the bombings’ effect on surviving victims violated a federal act, and if the death sentence should be vacated because he was 19 years old when he committed the crimes.

Prosecutors said it was not an error to apply the death penalty because the Supreme Court has held that the death penalty is permissible for those 18 and older at the time of their offense.

Also in the brief is a response to the contention that Tsarnaev is entitled to a hearing on his claim that a video of him buying a half-gallon of milk at a Whole Foods in Cambridge after the bombing “was the fruit of his allegedly coerced confession.”

Prosecutors argue that the video in the case was harmless because there was overwhelming evidence showing Tsarnaev lacked remorse after the bombing.

Tsarnaev, 25, is currently in solitary confinement at the federal Supermax prison in Colorado since a jury and federal Judge George O’Toole sentenced him to death in 2015.

Source: bostonherald.com, Andrew Martinez, June 28, 2019

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