4:19:01 PM Dzhokhar Tsarnaev asks judge for addition to death-penalty team - | |
Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wants to add another taxpayer-financed death-penalty specialist to his legal team — this time, a veteran attorney who helped spare a plane hijacker and a former member of al-Qaeda from execution.
In court papers filed today, Tsarnaev, through his lawyers, repeats an earlier request to appoint David Bruck, a Virginia lawyer whose past clients include Zayd Safarini, serving life for his role in the 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan; and Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, one of four men serving life for the 1998 bombing of the United States embassy in Nairobi.
Tsarnaev’s legal team already includes Judy Clarke, who helped negotiate life sentences for Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph.
"If this case did not present ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying appointment of an additioanl lawyer learned in the law applicable to capital cases ... no case would,” Clarke wrote in her motion.
"Media reports have described the global scope of the investigation,
involving hundreds of agents and witness interviews. Counsel expect that the amount of discovery that this investigation will produce will be truly massive. Thus even were this not a potentially capital case, the magnitude of the task confronting Mr. Tsarnaev’s attorneys would be daunting.
”Tsarnaev, 19, pleaded not guilty in federal court last week to 30 charges, 17 of which carry the death penalty. His legal team tried to add Bruck to its ranks back in April. At that time, a judge denied the request but promised to review it after his indictment.
Prosecutors have not said whether they intend to pursue Tsarnaev’s execution. The Herald reported last week that U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz’s office last week sent victims a questionnaire asking them, among other matters, about their thoughts on the death penalty.
By: John Zaremba
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