Protesters Allowed at Tsarnaev Trial, Judge Rules
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s legal team’s motion to ban protesters with“outrageous conspiracy theories’’ from outside the courthouse during the alleged marathon bomber’s federal trial has been turned down, The Boston Globe reports.
The defense filed for U.S. District Court Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. to ban Tsarnaev supporters, who assembled outside the Moakley Courthouse when the he appeared for a pretrial hearing in December. The demonstrators held signs alleging FBI entrapment and claiming the 21-year-old is innocent.
Marathon survivor Marc Fucarile, who had one of his legs amputated as a result of the bombing, confronted the protesters that day.
“That’s trickery?’’ Fucarile questioned, brandishing his prosthetic leg. “That’s proof right there.’’
The Tsarnaev team’s main concern, The Globe reported, was that their client’s reputation would be associated with the “outrageous’’ theories presented by those demonstrators:
“Defense attorneys had asked O’Toole to order the U.S. Marshals Service to keep demonstrators a reasonable distance from the courthouse, away from victims, jurors, and the public — to insulate Tsarnaev from the ‘deleterious and prejudicial impact’ of the demonstrations.’’
Late last year Boston.com’s Luke O’Neil spoke with several of the protesters, who said they were skeptical of some specific elements of the case, like the FBI’s shooting death of Ibragim Todashev—Dzhokar’s deceased brother Tamerlan’s friend—and the backpacks on surveillance videos shown to the public after the attack. Read O’Neil’s full report here.
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