Boston Marathon Bombing Trial: Prosecution Rests, Defense Moves for Acquittal
After 92 witnesses, 15 days, a mix of first-person accounts of the trauma, and forensic analysis, the prosecution rested its case Monday against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Tsarnaev faces 30 charges and the possibility of the death penalty in 17 of them. He is accused of killing four people and injuring over 260 during the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath.
Once the prosecution rested, the defense filed a motion to acquit Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on all counts, arguing that “the government failed to introduce evidence sufficient to establish each essential element of the offenses charged beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Acquittal motions, also called Rule 29 motions, are standard in criminal defense proceedings.
To begin their case, Tsarnaev’s defense team admitted his involvement with the bombings.
As the trial continued, prosecutors faced little resistance from Tsarnaev’s attorneys, who often did not cross-examine witnesses or challenge their assertions. Instead, the defense strategy has been to admit fault but place the core of blame on Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan.
Largely structured chronologically, the prosecution began their case with heart-wrenching testimony from witnesses at the marathon finish line who were injured by the two explosive blasts. Those witnesses included Bill Richard, the father of 8-year-old Martin Richard who was killed in the blasts, Jeff Bauman, who lost both of his legs, and Danling Zhou, a friend of victim Lingzi Lu.
After establishing the personal price of the bombings, a series of police and FBI agents introduced video and forensic evidence that placed the Tsarnaev brothers, carrying backpacks, at the marathon finish line.
Testimony then turned to the killing of MIT police officer Sean Collier three days after the bombings and the Tsarnaevs’ ensuing firefight with police in Watertown. A witness placed Dzhokhar at the scene of Collier’s cruiser at the time he was killed, and later, an expert testified that bloody gloves found in the Tsarnaevs’ car were a match for Collier’s DNA.
After Collier was shot, Dun Meng testified that the Tsarnaev brothers carjacked and held him at gunpoint in his Mercedes SUV. Once Meng escaped, the Tsarnaevs fled. Authorities said the brothers ended up in a residential area of Watertown where they engaged in a gun and bomb fight with law enforcement officers.
Tamerlan was temporarily subdued by police, and he was killed when Dzhokhar drove the SUV toward police and ran over his brother. After a day-long manhunt, Dzhokhar was captured hiding in a boat in Watertown.
Backpacks and belongings of the Tsarnaevs were recovered from the Watertown scene and presented in court. Stephen Silva, a former friend of Tsarnaev, testified that he provided a Ruger 9mm pistol to Dzhokhar a few months before the shootout. That gun was recovered in Watertown with fingerprints of Tamerlan, experts said. A series of law enforcement officers testified that bullets and shell casings from Collier’s vehicle and the Watertown crime scenes came from the same Ruger 9mm pistol.
Prosecutors also argued Tsarnaev had radical jihadi motivations for carrying out the bombings. Experts testified that his computer, iPod, thumb drives, and phones contained jihadi audio lectures and the al-Qaida magazine Inspire. The message that Dzhokhar wrote on the inside of a boat while evading authorities also contained numerous references to jihadi literature, an expert testified.
The prosecution’s case ended with testimony from three medical examiners who performed autopsies on Krystle Campbell, Martin Richard, and Lingzi Lu. Several jurors were brought to tears by photos of their fatal injuries.
The defense now has the opportunity to present its case and call its own witnesses.
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