Judge extends deadline in Boston Marathon bombing case
By The Associated Press
on January 14, 2014 at 10:13 PM, updated January 14, 2014 at 10:17 PM

BOSTON — A judge has granted a request from lawyers for Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for a later deadline for the defense to decide whether to ask to move the trial out of Boston.

Tsarnaev's lawyers had argued a Feb. 28 deadline was premature because U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder isn't expected to announce if prosecutors will seek the death penalty until late January. The lawyers also said the judge's rulings on other motions could affect whether they decide to seek a venue change.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. vacated the Feb. 28 deadline. He didn't immediately set a new deadline.

Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to a 30-count federal indictment, including a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction.

The April 15 bombing killed three people and wounded more than 260.

...more at link
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/ ... _mara.html

_________________
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___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

June trial set for Boston Marathon suspect's pals
ByCrimesider Staff CBS/AP January 15, 2014, 4: 52 PM

BOSTON - A federal judge has set a June trial for three friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on charges of hindering the investigation into the attack.

Attorneys for Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos had asked that the trial not be held until January 2015. But a lawyer for a third friend, Azamat Tazhayakov, asked for an earlier trial.

The judge agreed and scheduled the trial for June 23, several weeks earlier than Tazhayakov requested.

Authorities say Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov removed a laptop and backpack from Tsarnaev's room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth three days after the bombing.

Phillipos is accused of lying to authorities. All three men have pleaded not guilty.

...more at link
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/june-trial- ... ects-pals/

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Prosecutors seek to push back trial date for Tsarnaev’s college friends

12:52 23/01/2014

MOSCOW, January 23 (RAPSI, Ingrid Burke) – Prosecutors have moved to push back until June 30 the start date for the trial of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s college buddies Dias Kadyrbayev, Azamat Tazhayakov, and Robel Kidane Phillipos.

The court had initially set June 23 as the trial start date during a status conference held earlier this month.

According to a motion to continue filed by prosecutors Tuesday, “After the status conference, one of the case agents and an essential trial witness in this case informed the government that he has longstanding plans to travel out of state with his family from June 24, 2014 until June 29, 2014.”

The motion notes that all defendants have assented to the request.

http://rapsinews.com/judicial_news/2014 ... 25513.html

_________________
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___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

U.S. to seek death penalty for accused Boston Marathon bomber
Reuters
By David Ingram and Richard Valdmanis

WASHINGTON/BOSTON (Reuters) - The United States will seek the death penalty for accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is charged with planting homemade explosives devices that killed three people and wounded 264 at the Boston Marathon last year, the government's chief prosecutor said on Thursday.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement that he was authorizing trial prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev, who is charged with committing one of the largest attacks on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001.

"The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision," Holder said. Holder had faced a Friday deadline for deciding whether to seek the death penalty as part of Tsarnaev's upcoming trial in Boston.

Government prosecutors said in a filing with the U.S. District Court in Boston that reasons for Holder's decision included that the killings were premeditated, cruel and that Tsarnaev had shown a lack of remorse.

"One way or another, based on the evidence, Tsarnaev will die in prison," Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said. A trial date has not yet been set for Tsarnaev, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh reacted to Holder's announcement by saying he supported "the process that brought him to this decision," adding that his thoughts were with the victims of the bombing and their families.

"We stand together as one Boston in the face of evil and hatred," he said.

...more at link
http://news.yahoo.com/u-seek-death-pena ... 32155.html

_________________
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___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Tsarnaev lawyers due in court Wednesday

By Associated Press Updated: Monday, February 10, 2014, 5:50 am Published: Sunday, February 9, 2014, 8:06 pm

BOSTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors and lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be in court this week for the first time since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder authorized prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev.
A status conference is scheduled Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

...more at link
http://wpri.com/2014/02/09/tsarnaev-law ... wednesday/

_________________
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___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

UNITED STATES v. DZHOKHAR A. TSARNAEV
Case Number: 1:13-cr-10200
Defendant represented by: Miram Conrad, Timothy G. Watkins, William W. Fick & Judy Clarke (CA)
Next Court Date: Status Conference, Feb. 12, 2014 at 10:00 am. Courtroom 9, 3rd Floor - Judge George O’Toole

Defendants typically do not attend status conferences. Court dates or times may change on short notice. If you are a victim of this crime and plan to attend a court hearing, please confirm the date and time with the U.S. Attorney’s Office victim assistance staff before you travel to the courthouse.

USDOJ: US Attorney's Office - District of Massachusetts - United States v. Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev

http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/marathon/

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Judge sets November trial for accused Boston bomber
By Scott Malone
BOSTON Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:57pm EST

(Reuters) - The accused Boston Marathon bomber will face trial in November, a U.S. judge said on Wednesday, denying a request by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's attorneys for more time to prepare a defense on charges tied to the largest mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.

Attorneys for the 20-year-old native of Russia's Chechnya region argued that they needed more time to review massive amounts of evidence. Tsarnaev faces the threat of execution if convicted of the April 15 attack that killed three people, injured 264 and drew a massive security response, including a lockdown of the greater Boston area.

In addition to thousands of pages of files, computer records and security camera photographs, attorneys need to comb through some 2,000 pieces of physical evidence including shards of shrapnel from the blast site and damaged vehicles.

...more at link
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/ ... VH20140212

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Feds: Boston bomber suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, makes detrimental statement
Federal prosecutors say an FBI agent overheard Boston Marathon bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, make a 'statement to his detriment' when his sister visited him in prison.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, February 28, 2014, 10:02 PM

Now he’s shooting off his mouth.

An FBI agent overheard Boston marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev make a “statement to his detriment” when his sister visited him in prison, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Prosecutors did not reveal what Tsarnaev said, but they objected to what they called an attempt by Tsarnaev’s lawyers to suppress the statement.

Tsarnaev made the remark when an investigator working for his lawyers accompanied his sister on a visit, a meeting that an FBI agent monitored, prosecutors said.

The investigator started to explain to Tsarnaev’s sister the rationale behind special restrictions placed on her brother in prison, prosecutors said. They say Tsarnaev, “despite the presence of an FBI agent and an employee of the Federal Public Defender, was unable to temper his remarks and made a statement to his detriment which was overheard by the agent.”

The government described the conversation in a memo outlining its opposition to a request from Tsarnaev’s lawyers to lift the prison restrictions.

...more at link
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/f ... -1.1706971

_________________
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___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

From TalkLeft......

Tsarnaev Defense Renews Request for "Taint Team" and Lifting of SAM's
By Jeralyn, Section Terror Trials
Posted on Sun Mar 02, 2014 at 01:59:03 PM EST

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's defense lawyers have filed a motion (available here) renewing its request to lift the SAMs (special administrative measures) imposed by the Bureau of Prisons and to compel the Government to use a "taint team." The motion says "the defense is encountering obstacles related to FBI monitoring of family visits and BOP screening of materials that defense counsel need to review with the defendant."

When Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is visited by one of his sisters, the SAMs restrictions on him require the visit be monitored by the U.S. Marshals Service, Bureau of Prisons or FBI, so that the Government can determine if the visit is being used to pass messages soliciting or encouraging acts of violence or other crimes, or some other purpose that would violate the SAMs. The Government has recently said that an FBI agent present during a visit with one of his sisters heard Jahar make an inculpatory remark.

...more at link
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2014/3/2/ ... g-of-SAM-s

_________________
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___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Judge appoints lawyer for Tsarnaev friend
By Milton J. Valencia
March 06, 2014

A federal magistrate judge agreed Thursday to appoint a taxpayer-funded lawyer for a friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston Marathon terror bomber.

Robel Kidane Phillipos is charged in US District Court in Boston with lying to investigators in the bombing case.

US Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler agreed to appoint Derege Demissie to represent Phillipos, who knew Tsarnaev from Cambridge and attended the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth with him.

Demissie had already been hired by Phillipos, but Bowler agreed to appoint him at taxpayer expense. Judges can appoint a lawyer for a defendant who proves he cannot afford one.

Bowler would only appoint Demissie, but the lawyer and his law partner, Susan Church, said in a statement that they would both continue defending Phillipos, and that the appointment “is procedural matter that will not affect the vigorous and strong defense Mr. Phillipos will receive at trial.”

...more at link
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2014/03/06/ ... story.html

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Hearing set for accused Boston bomber’s friends in cover-up case
By Scott Malone, Reuters
Posted March 10, 2014, at 6:41 a.m.

BOSTON — Lawyers for three college friends of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who prosecutors say interfered with the investigation into the attack, are due in court on Monday to brief a judge on their readiness for a June trial.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock in January denied a joint request by federal prosecutors and two of the three defendants to delay the trial until early 2015, saying the case was “not that complex.”

Prosecutors say Kazakh exchange students Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, and Robel Phillipos of Cambridge, Mass., went to Tsarnaev’s Massachusetts dorm room three days after the attack and removed a laptop computer and empty fireworks casings.

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov face charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy for removing the bag, while Phillipos is charged with lying to investigators. All three have pleaded not guilty.

...more at link
http://bangordailynews.com/2014/03/10/n ... ref=latest

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Boston Bombing Suspect Seeks Dismissal Of Some Charges
03/12/2014

BOSTON (AP) — A hearing on a request to dismiss some of the charges against the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect will be held a year and a day after the deadly blasts.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) also wants a judge to lift special restrictions placed on him while he awaits trial.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. said in an electronic notice Wednesday that a hearing on those requests will be held on April 16.

Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to a 30-count indictment charging him in the explosions that killed three people and injured more than 260.

His lawyers say many of the charges are redundant and could sway jurors weighing whether to find him guilty and whether to sentence him to death. More than half the charges carry the possibility of the death penalty.

....more at link
http://www.wildabouttrial.com/one_off/b ... e-charges/

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Feds Ask to Block Boston Bombing Suspect from Autopsy Photos
First published March 18th 2014

Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to block Boston Marathon bombing defendant Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from looking at any autopsy photos of his four alleged victims unless they will be shown at the trial.

This restriction shouldn't apply to his lawyers, the government says. But letting Tsarnaev himself look at them "would violate the victims' rights to dignity and privacy and subject them to needless harm and suffering."

...more at link
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fed ... tos-n54816

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

FBI pushed elder Tsarnaev to be informer, lawyers assert
By Milton J. Valencia | Globe staff March 28, 2014

Lawyers for accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev asserted Friday that his older brother and alleged accomplice had been encouraged by the FBI to be an informant and to report on the Chechen and Muslim community, according to court records.

“We seek this information based on our belief that these contacts were among the precipitating events for Tamerlan’s actions during the week of April 15, 2013, and thus material to the defense case in mitigation,” the lawyers said in their court filing.

“We base this on information from our client’s family and other sources that the FBI made more than one visit to talk with Anzor [his father], Zubeidat [his mother] and Tamerlan, questioned Tamerlan about his Internet searches, and asked him to be an informant, reporting on the Chechen and Muslim community.

“We do not suggest that these contacts are to be blamed and have no evidence to suggest that they were improper, but rather view them as an important part of the story of Tamerlan’s decline. Since Tamerlan is dead, the government is the source of corroboration that these visits did in fact occur and of what was said during them.”

The lawyers suggested that Tamerlan Tsarnaev could have misinterpreted his interactions with the FBI as pressure from the agency, and that they could have “increased his paranoia and distress.”

The defense wants to investigate those factors as it seeks to portray Tamerlan as a dominating family figure who may have pushed the younger Dzhokhar to take part in the April 15 bombings last year. Tamerlan was killed days after the bombings in a confrontation with police in Watertown.

...more at link
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/0 ... story.html

Further Motion to Compel Discovery of Favourable Evidence (pdf 23 pages)
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... ocument/p1

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

BBM: Interesting phrasing as the VICTIMS are deceased & no longer experiencing "harm & suffering"!! Journalism at it's weirdest! The "harm & suffering" would be experienced by the decedents' survivors.

IMHO, the Esquire penning this motion missed the class on homicide trial ......post mortem photos are usually/almost always shown to the jury and the rules of jurisprudence require that a defendant be capable of "working toward his/her own defense" with the defense lawyer(s)!

IF "full justice" were demanded, DT should be forced to observe HIS brother's pictures @ the OCME, after all, DT did DRIVE OVER HIM!

Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect Seeks Hearing
By AP Posted: Fri 7:27 PM, May 02, 2014

BOSTON (AP) - Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev say they want a judge to hold a hearing on leaks of evidence and inappropriate public comments by government investigators about his case.

Tsarnaev awaits trial in November on 30 federal charges in last year's bombing, which killed three people.

His lawyers say in a filing made Friday the court should order prosecutors to put a stop to the disclosures, some of which may violate grand jury secrecy.

...more at link
http://www.kolotv.com/news/nationalnews ... 59211.html

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Prosecutors: Don’t move trial for Tsarnaev friends

By Travis Andersen
Globe Staff May 02, 2014

Federal prosecutors on Friday urged a judge to reject a request from three friends of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to move their trial on charges of obstructing justice and lying to investigators outside of Massachusetts.

In a filing in US District Court in Boston, prosecutors said the three friends -- Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev, and Robel Phillipos -- failed to show in their motion for a change of venue that pre-trial publicity has “displaced the judicial process in this case.”

“While this case has received local and national press coverage, there is no reason to doubt that the Court can empanel a fair and impartial jury drawn from Eastern Massachusetts,” prosecutors wrote.

...more at link
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/0 ... story.html

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect Seeks Hearing
By: AP
Posted: Fri 7:27 PM, May 02, 2014

BOSTON (AP) - Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev say they want a judge to hold a hearing on leaks of evidence and inappropriate public comments by government investigators about his case.

Tsarnaev awaits trial in November on 30 federal charges in last year's bombing, which killed three people.

His lawyers say in a filing made Friday the court should order prosecutors to put a stop to the disclosures, some of which may violate grand jury secrecy.

...more at link
http://www.kolotv.com/news/nationalnews ... 59211.html

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Marathon suspect statements plea
By Press Association, 8 May 2014 3.00am. Updated: 11.40am.

Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have argued that statements he made to authorities after he was arrested should be thrown out.

They said that Tsarnaev was questioned for 36 hours in a hospital room while suffering from gunshot wounds and without being told his rights.

The lawyers argued in a flurry of pretrial court filings that federal agents began questioning Tsarnaev about 20 hours after he arrived at the hospital in critical condition and his statements cannot be considered voluntary.

US federal investigators questioned him days after last year's deadly bombing without formally telling him of his right to a lawyer under a public safety exception allowed when there is concern about an ongoing threat.

But defence lawyers said the questioning continued "despite the fact that he quickly allayed concerns about any continuing threat to public safety, repeatedly asked for a lawyer, and begged to rest". They said his treatment included painkillers that impaired his judgment and increased his susceptibility to pressure.

...more at link
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/intern ... a-1.357696

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lawyers want death penalty nixed in terror case
Published May 07, 2014 Associated Press

BOSTON – Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev say prosecutors shouldn't be allowed to argue that targeting the crowded athletic event is a factor a jury should consider when weighing the death penalty.

In a court filing Wednesday, Tsarnaev's lawyers argued that the decision to bomb the marathon shouldn't be an "aggravating factor" in determining punishment. The lawyers say it would be duplicative, because prosecutors also allege that Tsarnaev committed the offense after substantial planning to cause death and commit an act of terrorism.

His lawyers also filed a motion asking the judge to declare the federal death penalty unconstitutional.

...more at link
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/07/dz ... rror-case/

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light