New Yorker magazine has an extensive profile of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev‘s lead defense attorney, Judy Clarke. She is apparently one of the nation’s leading criminal defense lawyers, whose fees were paid by your tax dollars (the woman who writes those checks, from her desk at the Justice Department in Washington, was actually at Burning Man this year!).
Amidst the puffery about how great this woman’s career has been (and Sheryl Sandberg would no doubt want us to point out that, had Judy Clarke been a man, she could have truly been successful) are a lot of interesting details regarding the defense strategy. Sadly for this graduate of the Cambridge Public Schools tolerance and diversity programs, it seems that nothing works well when you are a young jihadi and every member of the jury is wearing a “Boston Strong” T-shirt.
According to the article, “Jahar” sealed his own fate. Saint Judy plied all her tricks on the jury – touching the Joker to make him seem human, seating him between two women, etc. but he slouched impassively during all the testimony. He did not cry for any of the witnesses but he cried for himself and his family when he saw his aunt on the stand. And most importantly, he failed to show any remorse for his actions.
Most states allocate a few thousand dollars for the defense in a death penalty case. I find it incredible that Tsarnaev deserved millions of federal taxpayer dollars to be devoted to his defense. Saint Judy flew to Russia to meet the Joker’s parents and hired all sorts of experts and this for a man whose guilt was so unquestionable that even his own lawyer did not question it. I know that the Federal government considers it all funny money that they can just print up nowadays, but still it is nuts.
For an alternative view I offer Paul Craig Roberts,
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/pages/about-paul-craig-roberts/
FBI Evidence Proves Innocence of Accused Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
…..
As readers know, I have been suspicious of the Boston Marathon Bombing from the beginning. It seems obvious that both Tsamaev brothers were intended to be killed in the alleged firefight with police, like the alleged perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo affair in Paris. Convenient deaths in firefights are accepted as indications of guilt and solve the problem of trying innocent patsies.
In Dzhokhar’s case, his guilt was established not by evidence but by accusations, by the betrayal of his government-appointed public defender Judy Clarke who declared Dzhokhar’s guilt in her opening statement of her “defense,” by an alleged confession, evidence of which was never provided, written by Dzhokhar on a boat under which the badly wounded youth lay dying until discovered by the boat owner and hospitalized in critical condition. Following his conviction by his defense attorney, Dzhokhar allegedly confessed again in jihadist terms. As legal scholars have known for centuries, confessions are worthless as indicators of guilt….
Larry:
Thanks for the reference. I poked around on his web site to get a flavor of his point of view. While at times he seems at best “over the top” or at worst “out there” I did come across this priceless quote: “Elites are busy at work replacing law with power.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/09/02/rise-inhumanes-paul-craig-roberts/
Out of curiosity, I need to ask: has there transpired ANY remotely plausible motive OTHER than the alleged “anti-American jihad”, and some specific reason/ trigger for choosing this particular public event by the Tsarnaev brothers (if they were the ones)? I’ve read aplenty, but can not recall anything of the sort. Maybe it came up, but drowned in the hubbub of the aftermath?
Conspiracy theories are fun but there is overwhelming photographic and other evidence indicating that the Tsarnaevs built and placed the bombs, carjacked an auto, killed an MIT police officer, etc. Did Joker just happen to take a nap in that boat and the police came and shot him? Even Jahar himself effectively confessed at his sentencing (not to mention what he wrote in the boat). Confessions may not be the MOST reliable evidence but that does not mean that they must be entirely discounted either. Roberts is a moonbat.
The Marathon was a large public gathering in Boston where the Bombers lived. Other than that, I don’t think they had any special reason for targeting that particular event. I believe their plan was to next travel to NY and explode more bombs in other public places. Anywhere with a large crowd would have done for them.
“…betrayal of his government-appointed public defender Judy Clarke.”
They paid her millions to mount this betrayal. It seems to me that if they wanted to frame Dhokhar with an incompetent defense (or to kill him) they could have done this for much cheaper. If you read the NY’er article, St. Judy is considered the top of the line in getting obviously guilty defendants’ sentences reduced to life instead of the death penalty. There was never any chance that he was going to be acquitted based upon the massive pile of evidence and one of St. Judy’s standard tactics is not to piss off the jury in the death penalty phase by denying the obvious guilt of her clients. She did her usual good work but the Jewel’s slouching nonchalant demeanor in court didn’t help.
He got an A in tolerance and diversity training at Cambridge Public High School. Therefore he could not be guilty!
It is actually called Cambridge Rindge & Latin School.
Too bad that they didn’t teach posture and acting. If he had sat up straight and looked suitably remorseful then St. Judy might have won the jury over. She has represented much worse psychopaths and spared them from the death penalty. I’m sure that she tried to instruct him, but Joker was too much of a slacker/stoner to pay attention to what his teachers were telling him (if he got an A in diversity it was just for showing up). Except flunking this test may cost him his life.
It’s very strange BTW that Jhahar has developed some kind of thick, vaguely Middle Eastern accent that he never had before (especially since his family is not from the Middle East – I think they spoke Russian at home). Dzhoker arrived here at age 9 and did not have a foreign accent in his Rindge days.
He did not cry for any of the witnesses but he cried for himself and his family when he saw his aunt on the stand. And most importantly, he failed to show any remorse for his actions. […] the Jewel’s slouching nonchalant demeanor in court didn’t help. […] Too bad that they didn’t teach posture and acting. If he had sat up straight and looked suitably remorseful then St. Judy might have won the jury over.
Izzie L., if the evidence against Dzhokhar is so clear-cut & overwhelming, what does it matter (and repeatedly gets mentioned in accusatory terms) what posture he had in court. Without going into the guilt/ innocence question, such smells of insecurity, like the forensic proof wasn’t enough, so we need to corroborate it with reality-TV. Besides, what kind of expected (what emotional grade) behavior are we talking about, the accused crying floods on the stand? ripping off his hair? prostrating himself on the floor? that would live up to the sentimental public and the sensationalist press’ requirements of a sincere admission of guilt?
(If I recall correctly, similar claims of odd-behavior in custody, absence of theatrical displays of sorrow over a dead flat mate, were what turned then 20yo happy-camper Amanda Knox into a cold-blooded butcherer in the eyes of Italian public opinion (and now, 4 years in jail and 8 years later, after having been fully exonerated, that accounts for >50% polled Italians and not a negligent number of Britons and her fellow Americans, still claiming she got away with murder)).
Let’s say that, due to Tsarnaev living more than half his life in the U.S.A., and fitting in with his peers prior to the Marathon, we could expect somewhat more culturally-palatable “stage-responsive” behavior from him. But then we’d have to allow first that we consider his & the brother’s—the lodestar’s of his young life—actions as fully rational: they were angry at AMERIKA! for not delivering on its promises, so they gave back as much as they took (or something). Whereas in private we can but admit, that the terror act they’re accused of CAN NOT BE EXPLAINED in usual Aristotlean-logic/ rational terms. Perhaps in “death-wish” context, but then we deny its existence and at best classify such as sickness.
Thus this quest for formal retribution is but a kind of theater, with 12 allegedly unprejudiced and mentally blind polity representatives expected to arrive at a verdict that will spell J.U.S.T.I.C.E. to the accused. Yes, I know, this is a step in the right direction, evolution from the days of mob rule, gallows & the guillotine. But let us be honest, that it is primarily a form of ceremony designed to reassure us of our, the public’s, civility, over the beastly accused’s inhumanity. Tsarnaev, too, plays the part we expect of him.
(As an aside, I don’t get the public “appetite” for death penalty as the most severe, apt form of retribution… as if, in comparison, life imprisonment was some kind of cushy all-paid vacation. But it’s a topic for another discussion.)