Boston Marathon bomber appeals death sentence

BOSTON (Reuters) – The lawyers of bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, journalist of the Boston Marathon, asked Thursday at the Court of Appeal of 39; annul his death sentence and his death sentence for contributing to the perpetration of the 2013 attack three people and injured more than 260 others.

Tsarnaev's attorney, 25, stated in a brief before the US Court of Appeals in Boston that a trial judge's refusal to transfer the case to another court city ​​not traumatized by the attacks deprived it of a fair trial.

Tsarnaev's lawyers acknowledged that their client as well as his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, perpetrated the attack. But they argued that the total media coverage of the attacks meant that almost all the members of the jury were exposed to information about the attacks, which included "heartbreaking stories about the victims of the homicide, the wounded and their families". [19659003] "The pre-trial publicity was overwhelming: the more a future juror had seen, the more likely she was to believe that Tsarnaev was guilty and deserved the death penalty," Tsarnaev's lawyers wrote in a memoir. 500 pages.

The appeal comes after a 2015 federal jury had declared Tsarnaev guilty of placing a pair of homemade autoclave bombs near the finish line of the world-famous race April 15, 2013, as well as the deadly killing of a police officer for three days. later.

The same jury later concluded that Tsarnaev deserved to be executed for six of the 17 counts of capital of which he was convicted, which were related to the bomb he had personally placed on the line. arrival of the marathon.

This bomb killed eight-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest of the death victims, and Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Chinese student who participated in an exchange. The bombing was one of the most prominent attacks on US soil since September 11, 2001.

Tsarnaev's lawyers acknowledged his involvement in the attack early in his trial, but have claimed that Tsarnaev, then 19, was a junior partner. in an arrangement hatched and directed by his older brother.

Brother Tamerlan, 26 years old at the time, died after a shooting with the police four days after the attack, which ended when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev overthrew him with a stolen car.