BREAKING: Jury Finds Tsarnaev Guilty (All 30 Counts) in Boston Marathon Bombing

[Hissyspit]

Last edited Wed Apr 8, 2015, 02:46 PM - Edit history (2)

Source: Reuters

Jury finds Tsarnaev guilty in Boston Marathon bombing

BOSTON | Wed Apr 8, 2015 2:31pm EDT

By Scott Malone and Elizabeth Barber

BOSTON (Reuters) - The jury hearing the Boston Marathon bombing on Wednesday found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of killing three people and injuring 264 in the April 15, 2013 attack on the city's best-attended sporting event, as well as fatally shooting a police officer four days later.

Tsarnaev, 21, was tried on a sprawling 30-count indictment, with 17 of the charges carrying the death penalty. The jury that found him guilty will now decide whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without possibility of parole.

Jurors spent just over 11 hours evaluating Tsarnaev’s guilt in two days of deliberations, following 16 days of testimony.

Defense lawyers have admitted that Tsarnaev committed the crimes of which he stands accused but said he did so at the bidding of his older brother Tamerlan, 26, who died following a gunfight with police in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0MZ0ZI20150408

[still_one]

1. Let me guess.....

Guilty

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Ha!

Not to make light, but that made me laugh.

[still_one]

9. The news characterization of "breaking story" seemed slightly

Hyperbolic, and my first thought was it will be an anticlimactic verdict

[edbermac]

3. Obviously will be found guilty.

The only major discussion jurors had is prison or death penalty.

[Hissyspit]

4. There are quite a few charges. Sentencing comes later.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it is a separate jury?

[edbermac]

5. Yeah I wasn't sure about the penalty phase after the verdict.

Hard to keep track of that trial and Aaron Hernandez trial.

[The CCC]

14. There are quite a few charges. Sentencing comes later.

In Massachusetts it is the same jury

[msanthrope]

18. Federal. Same jury. And there are no jurors who

cannot impose due to conscience or belief.

[irisblue]

6. I bet death penalty

Timothy McVeigh not Ralph Nickles

[NuclearDem]

7. Did you mean Terry Nichols?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Nichols

[irisblue]

8. I truly did

Ralph Nickles started the Golden Endings dog rescue here in Columbus....a brain fart

[csziggy]

37. Apparently they had a questions this morning about conspiracy

Before the jurors began their second day, Judge George O'Toole Jr. answered two notes from the panel containing questions. WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong reports that the questions had to do with the legal definitions of "conspiracy" and "aiding and abetting."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/boston-marathon-bombing-jury-resumes-deliberations-after-asking-judge-questions/

The defense admitted he did it so there was really no question of his guilt.

[Archae]

55. Not according to Alex Jones!

Of course, Jones is off the deep end anyway...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026476283

[csziggy]

58. Or some right here on DU

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1061891

[freshwest]

73. They're everywhere. It's a big business. n/t

[George II]

10. Guilty on at least the first four of 30 counts

[cosmicone]

11. Hope they don't waste time on appeals

His guilt is not in question and never was.

A swift lethal injection is needed.

[samsingh]

67. i agree

[LeftInTX]

12. I'm watching the twitter verdicts - updates

https://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/herald_bulldog/2015/04/jury_reaches_verdict_in_tsarnaev_trial

[Man from Pickens]

13. No surprise

It was a star chamber proceeding to begin with.

Kid never got to talk to a lawyer without the feds listening in, his lawyer behaved like he was part of the prosecution, and he was drugged up the whole time.

Easy as pie to convict someone when the defendant never gets a chance to present his side of the story. By the time the full truth comes out on this, he'll have been executed.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

15. You forgot

the sarcasm tag.

[Man from Pickens]

16. in this case I'm not being sarcastic

If you think he got a defense at this "trial", then tell me: what was his defense?

Doesn't it seem even slightly unusual to you that you have never once heard the defendant's side of the story?

[christx30]

19. His defense was that he was talked into it

by his big brother whom he admired greatly. If someone were to ask me to try to kill a bunch of people, I'm going to say no. If I think there's a slight chance of him pulling it off, I'm going to turn him in. I don't care who it is. I've never admired anyone enough to kill for them.
But he went ahead with it. People lost their lives. People lost limbs. He deserves anything that happens to him. I hope it's life without parole. This 21-year-old needs to spend his good years in a cage. He'll never get married. He'll never have children. This is what he chose for his life. He'll live and die in a small room, forgotten by the rest of the planet. His family will get to collect his ashes.

[Man from Pickens]

21. Are you sure?

Please cite the source from which you were informed of the alleged defense.

[christx30]

23. Just some quickly googled links:

"We are not asking you to excuse the conduct, but let's look at the varying roles," Clarke said today, arguing that evidence pointed to Tamerlan being primarily responsible. "If not for Tamerlan, it [the bombing] wouldn't have happened."

In return, the prosecution said Clarke was trying to let her client "dodge full responsibility."

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/04/us/boston-marathon-bombing-trial/

So, why even a trial at all?

Because there's disagreement over why Tsarnaev did it, Clarke said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was influenced by his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Clarke said. He was enlisted by his brother to commit these horrific acts, she said.

and www.wcvb.com/news/tsarnaev-jury-gets-judges-instructions-deliberations-to-begin/32228196
Headline: Deliberations begin: Tsarnaev under older brother's influence?

[Man from Pickens]

25. He never got to speak to his lawyer in private

The defendant never got to formulate a defense. The lawyer is defending the case, but that's not the same thing.

Not once at any point since his throat got cut on arrest has he ever made any statement about the case whatsoever, and he was clearly drugged up at the trial itself.

That isn't a trial. That's a star chamber.

[WilliamPitt]

28. You don't brain much, do you.

[Man from Pickens]

35. show me how good you brain

here's something for you to brain on

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/the-killing-of-ibragim-todashev-an-ongoing-mystery/284103/

[WilliamPitt]

36. Tsarnaev's lawyer

pointed at him in the opening statements and said "He did it."

So what's your fucking point?

[Man from Pickens]

40. That IS the point

What kind of lawyer points at his own client and says he did the crime... after entering 30 not guilty pleas?

Brain on that one a bit, mate. It don't add up.

[lofty1]

71. I agree

There is so much about this case that did not and still doesn't add up. See this site for many examples: http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/04/07/why-we-fight-with-the-pen/

[christx30]

30. Do you think he was innocent

and the cops just got the wrong guy?

[Man from Pickens]

32. I do not know

What I do know is that there was a basis to have a vigorous defense and he had no opportunity to present one. If we as a country have faith in the justice system then there's no reason to deny him his Constitutional right to confer privately with a lawyer and create a defense. If the prosecution believes its case is solid then it has every incentive to make sure this got done by the book - and it wasn't.

What it looks like to me is a situation engineered to make sure that the details of FBI involvement are never made public. All sorts of details are still unresolved, such as the other guys on scene with backpacks that were identical to the ones used in the bombing, the pre-announcement of a bomb drill, the murder of a witness, the previous warnings from the Russian FSB about the older brother, the details of the previous longstanding FBI relationship with the older brother, and other strange circumstances.

Go back and look at the video. Does that look like a backpack stuffed with 30 lbs. of pressure cooker and explosives that he's carrying?

Something stinks to high heaven about this case.

[FailureToCommunicate]

34. "Star chamber"?

Oy.

[kiri]

44. hmm... and "nano-thermite"

so brought down the twin towers, eh?

Defending the innocent is noble, but concocting weird scenarios to exonerate the guilty is not worthy.

[msanthrope]

20. As a criminal defense attorney, I can only suggest to you that had that

defendant got on the stand, it might have taken the jury less than an hour to convict.

His lawyers did a good job with what they had....which was a guilty as sin client, caught on tape.

[Man from Pickens]

22. Let's see the tape

I've been following the case and I haven't seen any such tape.

[msanthrope]

24. Here.....I did your googling for you.....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11460886/Boston-bombing-trial-new-footage-of-Tsarnaev-brothers-before-explosions.html

[Man from Pickens]

27. nothing in that video shows him doing the crime

All it shows was that he was in the crowd.

Contrast that to the cop caught on tape firing 8 shots into a fleeing man's back and dropping the taser as planted evidence. That is what a crime caught on tape looks like.

So where's the tape showing him actually planting a bomb? That's the claim - where is it?

[Gore1FL]

48. He wrote a confession in the boat.

Besides pictures, a video, multiple confessions, the tracking of the materials to make the bomb, what else is needed?

http://www.ibtimes.com/what-did-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-write-boat-read-boston-bombing-suspects-note-here-1588472

[alcibiades_mystery]

53. But how do I KNOW know that

my feet are really my feet, and that I didn't dream them because of US government MKULTRA secret X-Rays? Hmmm? Hmmmm? Answer me THAT!

[GoneFishin]

66. Where is the actual note. I looked for it at that link and did not see it.

[christx30]

69. Found one.

Pictures and everything.
http://nypost.com/2015/03/10/note-written-by-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-while-hiding-in-boat-revealed/

ETA:
Here's a second source, in case you don't trust the NY Post.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/03/10/here-the-note-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-wrote-inside-the-boat-where-was-captured/h7xFrSTXKT6L4Euc8N5bEN/story.html

[GoneFishin]

76. Got it. Thanks.

[christx30]

80. You bet. Happy to help.

So... Guilty?
Life without the possibility of parole?

[christx30]

83. Here's another link,

detailing that Tsarnaev's lawywer one of the top death-penalty lawyers in the US. And it also details her strategy in saying that he did it.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-pleaded-not-guilty-2015-4

[Gore1FL]

72. Here is alink

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/10/images-show-tsarnaev-message-watertown-boat/HFmuYj0uK3SJUfTvNyiPPL/story.html

It has pictures of the writing and the text.

[GoneFishin]

77. Thanks.

[christx30]

17. "I was there, planting bombs, minding my own business, like I do every week.

and this marathon jumped out from behind a bush and scared me half to death. It was self defense..."

[kiri]

46. sweet

Trolls are everywhere.

[Throd]

38. So he was set up?

I guess there always has to be one in these kind of threads.

[freshwest]

57. Plenty of company on the false flag thing. Beck, Jones, Kokesh, the Pauls. n/t

[Beacool]

26. Is anyone surprised?

There was enough video proof of his culpability. At least he's still alive and has all his limbs. I don't feel sorry for him. He won't go through life missing one or both of his legs, unlike some of his victims.

[freshwest]

29. Also he said it was his duty to kill. Not a surprise. n/t

[Beacool]

31. There's that too.

Any legitimate complaint he and his brother may have had became null and void the minute they decided to inflict harm on innocent bystanders. Ditto for every other terrorist attack by cowards who won't come face to face with their enemy and choose instead to maim and kill civilians. A pox on all of them!!!

[freshwest]

68. That he himself admitted it is an unpopular truth at times. It's more than possible that he simply

Last edited Wed Apr 8, 2015, 09:10 PM - Edit history (1)

believes what he said, and that it was his right to kill others.

Those who see him as a victim may have learned that the hard way if they'd been there that day.

He's not some kind of pet and not safe to live with others, IMO.

[GoneFishin]

65. I must have missed him saying that. Where can I see that?

[jtuck004]

33. A trial in a place where there are no unbiased jurors. Then kill him. America the beautiful. n/t

[Throd]

39. I think the little fucker planted a bomb and killed people. Spare me your crap.

[Miles Archer]

41. I think the level of mystery surrounding his actions is "nil."

Death penalty debates aside, I'd be fascinated by anyone who could come forward and find this prick "innocent."

So there's a list of what he did, a list of who suffered and died as a result, and I am 100% OK with him getting the maximum penalty at this point.

If he gets life in prison, he'll be the 2015 version of Jeffrey Dahmer, a trophy. Any sentence this boy gets will be a "death sentence."

[jtuck004]

43. Wonder if we have blown up any innocent children with our drones today?

...On 14 July 2009, Daniel L. Byman of the Brookings Institution stated that although accurate data on the results of drone strikes is difficult to obtain, it seemed that ten civilians had died in the drone attacks for every militant killed. Byman argues that civilian killings constitute a humanitarian tragedy and create dangerous political problems, including damage to the legitimacy of the Pakistani government and alienation of the Pakistani populace from America. He suggested that the real answer to halting al-Qaeda's activity in Pakistan will be long-term support of Pakistan's counterinsurgency efforts.[43]

United States officials claim that interviews with locals do not provide accurate numbers of civilian casualties because relatives or acquaintances of the dead refuse to state that the victims were involved in militant activities.[169]
...

I thought the story of us blowing up the little kids building mud pies on the side of the road by their home right on point.

"United States officials claim..." < Same claim that City of Ferguson, Missouri officials make.

Innocent Americans. More like Je Suis Murderers

[Throd]

45. OK. I changed my mind. It's all good. Thanks.

We should let him go.

[jtuck004]

47. I don't need your approval.

You are wrong, btw. He should have a fair trial - what he did was as wrong as we are. If we can't provide a fair trial, we have no moral standing to complain.

And we should quit murdering people in far off places and pretending we are better than him.

[Throd]

49. I am better than him. If you want to consider him your equal, have at it.

What part of his trial did not seem fair to you?

[jtuck004]

50. Being in a town of people who think they are better than him. They aren't. lol. n/t

[Gore1FL]

51. Specifically, list the ways that his trial was not fair.

Please leave unrelated U.S. foreign policy issues out of the mix.

[jtuck004]

52. Just watch tv. It will have the wisdom you seek. I'm just not that into you.

And the foreign policy issues are part and parcel, but it is illuminating that you think otherwise. Figured you could see that from atop that high horse.

Bye.

[GoneFishin]

56. You are conversing with people who can't connect two dots with a paint roller.

[emulatorloo]

60. Or maybe we just don't listen to Alex Jones enough

Posted by Archae:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026476283

Somebody get the butterfly nets, Alex Jones really has lost it...

Rand Paul's Ally Alex Jones: Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "Was Totally Set Up," "We Know It Was Fake"

http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/04/08/rand-pauls-ally-alex-jones-boston-marathon-bomb/203215

[Gore1FL]

70. I don't care if you are into me or not.

My interest was in you supporting your opinion with relevant support.

If you can't you can't. No biggie.

[Major Nikon]

42. Results...

On Wed Apr 8, 2015, 03:11 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

A trial in a place where there are no unbiased jurors. Then kill him. America the beautiful. n/t
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1061987

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

TOS violation, see paragraph 2. Terrorist apologist, America hater.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=termsofservice


You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Wed Apr 8, 2015, 03:24 PM, and the Jury voted 3-4 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Hahahaha! No.
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: over the top
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: This post does not make someone a terrorist apologist. Please who alerted on this? This was something being widely discussed on MSNBC today you know the good old terrorist apologist network that it is. FFS. Now I do agree people that just want to kill him are in the wrong here, but he'll I myself am a Massachusetts resident who opposes the death penalty... Where we clearly are unbiased.
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: I have noticed this poster going out of his way to be hostile and disruptive on other threads as well today. Play nice or go home.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: The jury does not vote on TOS violations. Only CS. See Skinner for TOS violations. So, with that said; I don't see how this violates the CS? Maybe you know something about this member that I don't but I can't hide this post.
Juror #7 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: If you believe he is innocent or the trial process is inherently unfair you should address that. But being snarky and dumping on the victims and basically everyone that makes up this country is a bit over the top.

[GoneFishin]

54. His own lawyer broadcast to the world that he is guilty. What was the purpose of this circus?

What other possible outcome could there have been when your own lawyer stipulates to your guilt. Why was taxpayer money wasted on this other than as a circus act?

[Throd]

59. Are you saying the lawyer should have plead innocence?

Even people who admit to their crimes have to have a trial.

[GoneFishin]

61. The legal system, with it's lawyers, is designed to be adversarial system, where both sides

bring their best game, and objective judges and jurors decide.

If your lawyer starts his case with "my client is a guilty bastard" then you are not getting a fair trial.

He threw his client under the bus then drove over him, back and forth, until his flesh peeled of his bones.

That was no trial, it was a show for the masses, a waste of taxpayer money.

[freshwest]

62. Due Process is not a circus. The lawyers attempted every other manuever for him. The admission of

Tsarnaev came from himself and his friends. He had the best legal team money could buy, conducted by strong civil rights attorneys.

Admitting his guilt, after he gave his reasons for killing, was being used to show he was under the influence of his older brother and should get leniency. I'm sure the attorneys will start an appeal for him, no matter what the sentecne will.

The 'he's guilty' of the crime is not the same as him being found an innocent person. That gambit failed, and it was the last resort, not the first, following all these many months that they fought for him as 'innocent before proven guilty in a court of law.' The jury did not find him to be a victim of his brother and an unwilling accomplice and they convicted him.

But it was necessary to give him a fair trial, to search out all the evidence and give him a chance. And some in this world do believe that his murdering and maiming those people is justified, or of no importance, if it contradicts their ideology. And that goes for all killings.

[GoneFishin]

63. "The lawyers attempted every other manuever for him." Baseless nonsense. They failed as

defense lawyers. And I am not talking about his conviction because that was highly likely regardless. But they put up NO defense. They probably did more harm than no lawyers at all. They are disgraceful failures as lawyers.

[freshwest]

64. I won't bother to go into the DU links of their attempts, then. n/t

[brooklynite]

74. The Lawyer's stated position...

...was not to waste time proving the unprovable, and play for mitigation by explaining why Tsarnaev went along with his brother's plan.

[GoneFishin]

75. Then he did not have a lawyer representing him, he had an assistant prosecutor. If the lawyer was

unwilling or unable to defend him vigorously then they should have recused themself and made room for someone who actually knew what the hell they were doing. "It's too hard so I am not even going to try" is not a defense strategy. This lawyer should be disbarred.

[brooklynite]

79. The job of a defense attorney is NOT to have his client declared not guilty...

...The job of a defense attorney is to act in his client's best interest. That MAY involve challenging the evidence against his client and attempting to have him declared not guilty. It may ALTERNATIVELY involve him recommending and negotiating a plea deal, or in this case attempting to mitigate the outcome of the fairly insurmountable evidence against his client.

Consider the following. If the only acceptable position his lawyer can take is to say "the prosecution can't prove he did it", and the prosecution DOES prove he did it, (given the evidence, extremely likely) then he's going to face the full impact of the penalty phase. If the lawyer says "yes, he did it, but he was mentally ill/under the sway of his brother/etc., he has the potential to mitigate the penalty phase. Which approach is more responsible?

[GoneFishin]

81. I reject your fait accompli premise because it assumes a presumption of guilt which is ok for you

personally, but is antithetical to a fair trial and due process in America. That aside, it is not an either/or situation. The lawyer could have challenged the evidence and still argued that there were mitigating circumstances in the penalty phase.

What the lawyer did was to free the prosecution from proving their case, and allowed them instead to use the entire trial as a penalty phase, putting on hundreds of witnesses to testify about the degree of horror of the incident rather than proving the guilt of the accused.

It was a complete mockery.

[christx30]

82. So the lawyer for the cop that is accused of

shooting that guy 8 times in the back. We have video evidence of the incident, showing that the cop was not, in any way, in danger from the suspect that he gunned down. Would you suggest that he challenge the evidence? "That's not real video of me doing that."
A trial is the search for truth. If the truth is painly obvious, as it was in this case, with evidence, bomb parts everywhere, and the hand written confession, sometimes you just have to find the best way of taking care of your client, even if it't just trying to stop him from getting the death penalty.
The laywer looked at the evidence against his client, and knew that there was no way he was going to shoot enough holes in the prosecution's case. The legal damage to his client is just too great to overcome. The only thing he could do is try to limit the damage.

[GoneFishin]

84. Your comparison is a clever one. But beyond rhetorical value the two cases are immensely different.

The video of the guy being shot in the back is empirically clear. No one can credibly dismiss the actions of the cop as anything other than a deliberate act committed by the cop himself. There is no one else around. No one else could have a motive to induce him to shoot his gun 8 times into a man's back. The video provides proof of means, motive, opportunity, and a clear image of the crime being committed. There is no need for well paid experts to tell me what I am supposed to see on that video.

That is entirely different from Boston.

[christx30]

85. There was a lot of evidence against him.

Including the guy's handwritten confession. He said he did it. His lawyer said he did it, and Tsarnaev didn't object, or say his lawyer was bad.

Found this for you:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2015/04/07/backpacks-bombs-blood-the-evidence-against-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-photos.html#c7bfd2f5-11af-4d5f-91d0-be0f2e3b3ff1

And here is the link I sent on another thread for you:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-pleaded-not-guilty-2015-4
She knew that she couldn't argue against the evidence. So she said he did it so the jury would trust her, and she could reasonably argue against the death penalty when that time came. It's the why he did it that she was arguing the whole time. She's saying that his brother was the mastermind behind the whole thing, and Dzhokhar was just along for the ride. The differance is the differance between life in prison and a needle in the arm. To me, she's doing the best thing that any person could for the young man.

[GoneFishin]

88. I understand your position.

[One_Life_To_Give]

86. You would rather shoot the moon than try to avoid the death penalty?

Supposedly that was the sole goal of his defense team. Aiming to get the jury to come back with Life in Prison. Trying to get an acquittal may have been an admirable goal for any defense attorney. But it may also be true that trying to convince a Jury of his innocence might have made him look like a more hardened, vicious criminal and made the DP more probable if convicted.

Supposedly his defense team were experts in Death Penalty Cases. And they are the ones who decided to take that tack.

[GoneFishin]

87. That is a false dichotomy. For experts they don't appear to know what they are doing.

The prosecution's portrayal of him is of a brutal, bloody, murderous, fanatical religious zealot. For "his" team to pretend that voluntarily verbally condemning their own client is going to somehow inspire an atmosphere of good will with the jury is a complete and utter farce.

[One_Life_To_Give]

89. She has a decent record in Federal Capital Cases though

Given the uniqueness of the types of high profile cases she has already successfully handled. I am willing to cut her some slack. Unless you can show how she handled Ted Kazynski, Eric Rudolph or other such cases differently.

[Blue_Tires]

78. Tsarnaev was another who was "inspired" by Anwar al-Awlaki

But we're not supposed to remember that...