The change-of-venue and delay in the trial request by the lawyers of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was turned down by a federal judge on Wednesday.
The lawyers’ request to push the trial back until September next year was denied by US District Judge George O’Toole.
Now, the selection of jury members in the bomb blast case involving Tsarnaev will begin as per schedule on Monday. The trial is beginning 18 months after the suspect was indicted in the case. Tsarnaev’s defense team said that they are disappointed by the denial of the request as the decision will now bring the case to trial faster than 99 of the 119 federal capital trials to get under way since the year 2004.
21-year-old Tsarnaev, who was a college student at the time of his arrest, will be tried in the court on charges of taking lives of three people and injuring over 260 with twin homemade bombs at the finish line of a race on April 15, 2013. He is also charged for fatally shooting a university police official three days later.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers claimed that the intense publicity of the case will prevent a local jury from giving a fair judgment.
In a change-of-venue motion, Tsarnaev’s lawyers argued, “The inescapable conclusion is that great local prejudice will prevent a fair trial by an impartial jury, in violation of Mr. Tsarnaev’s constitutional rights to due process of law and a fair trial.”
If convicted in a trial, which is expected to run for three months, Tsarnaev faces the possibility of execution.
