Attorney General Eric Holder announced this afternoon that the U.S. government will seek the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is currently awaiting trial for last year’s Boston bombings. “The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision,” Holder said in a statement.
The decision comes more than nine months after the twin bombings at the Boston Marathon, and the ensuing manhunt that ultimately ended with Tsarnaev in custody and his older brother, Tamerlan, dead. It sets in motion the highest-profile federal death penalty case since Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Still, there’s a long way to go between today’s announcement and Tsarnaev’s potential execution. As the New York Times notes, only three people have been put to death by the U.S. government since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988. Meanwhile, in nearly half of such cases, prosecutors eventually withdraw the threat of capital punishment before trial, more often than not as part of a plea deal, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel. Put simply: It typically doesn’t make a lot of sense for the prosecution to give up its biggest bargaining chip now without getting something in return (a confession).
Also working in Tsarnaev’s favor is his legal team, which includes Judy Clarke, a defense lawyer with an unmatched record of keeping high-profile public enemies off of death row. Her legal resume includes the defenses of Susan Smith, who drowned her two children in 1994; the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski; Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph; and most recently Jared Loughner. All received life sentences but were spared the death penalty. As the Daily Beast noted in a profile of Clarke last year, Clarke has previously quoted a fellow defense lawyer as once advising her, “The first step to losing a capital case is picking a jury.” Chances are that’s advice she’ll look to follow this time, too.
"He has the character of the best person who could exist. Anyone who sees him falls in love with him. Dzhokhar, he is a gift from Allah, not just because he is my son - he is like an angel, this child. The Americans know him better than I do. They taught him. He was in the newspapers everywhere: he was excellent, good, kind. He worked all the time. In his extra moments, he worked so that things would not be difficult for us, his parents. He didn’t keep a penny for himself. This kind of child. You understand."
“He would call me every day from America in the last days,” Zubeidat Tsarnaev said Sunday in a telephone interview with The Times from her home in the Russian republic of Dagestan, “and during our last conversation on the morning [before the shootout], he was especially…
**This thing seems to be growing longer & longer as the months pass. I came across it while organizing files on my computer & thought I’d post what (I think) is the most up to date version as I know people refer to certain aspects of it regularly.**
On the evening of September 11, 2011 Brendan Mess 25, Erik Weissman 31, and Raphael Teken 37, were violently murdered in Mess’ second floor Waltham apartment (pictured left). The three friends were heavily involved in the Boston gym scene, Mess as a boxer and martial arts instructor, Wiessman a body builder and Teken a martial arts instructor and personal trainer.
All three were found in separate rooms and had their heads pulled back and throats slit from ear to ear with such great force that they were almost totally decapitated. Large amounts of marijuana were deliberately sprinkled over their mutilated bodies, and $5,000 was left at the scene.
At the time police stated that it appeared the killer and victims knew one another, and that the murders were not random. They tied the crime to illegal drugs and insisted that the answers to the brutal slaying were firmly rooted in that world: all three men had been arrested previously on drugs charges and were also known to deal drugs in their local community. The motive for the killings was clearly not robbery and the ritualistic nature of the murders strongly suggested they had been committed in order to send a message to others: this is what will happen to you if you cross our paths.
Yet, for two years the crime remained completely unsolved. After repeated criticism from the victim’s families that the case had never been properly investigated, and the admission from authorities that they had not given it the attention it so clearly warranted, a surprising new breakthrough was announced on 22nd April 2013.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the deceased accused marathon bomber, had been responsible for the killings. Tsarnaev had known Mess for many years and the two high school friends shared an interest in boxing, regularly training in the gym with one another. The motive for killing his friend and two others in such a barbaric manner? Drugs?
No, the motive had changed. They were Jewish.
Tsarnaev had murdered his best friend and two others not in vengeance for any perceived insult, not to rob them, nor out of some sudden and inexplicable murderous impulse. He almost decapitated the three simply because they were Jewish.
Several weeks later the public were informed that he had an accomplice. Ibragim Todeshev (himself a registered mixed martial arts fighter) was shot dead in his Florida home on May 22nd 2013. The killing of Ibragim Todashev by an FBI agent was perhaps the most bizarre twist in the Boston marathon bombing case to date. Todashev was unarmed, had no legal counsel present, and was recovering from major knee surgery at the time of his death. He was reportedly about to write a confession to the murders, in which he would also implicated Tsarnaev, moments before he was killed. The case was solved.
Or was it?
Claims of ‘mounting evidence’ against Tsarnaev and Todashev were disputed.
What demonstrable evidence exists that Tsarnaev and Todeshev were guilty of the crime?
Aside from the alleged confession of a dead man, which was never taken down in writing, obtained under circumstances the FBI refuse to clarify, and only ever witnessed by the one sole federal agent who shot his unarmed interviewee 7 times prior to actually obtaining a statement from him, not very much at all.
Authorities state the evidence consists of:
•DNA evidence linking Tsarnaev to the property
•Phone records that place Tsarnaev and his younger brother (accused marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) ‘in the area’ at the time of the murders
•An implication, although no confirmation, that a gun missing from Mess’ apartment was the same gun used to kill Officer Sean Collier
•Fragile circumstantial evidence citing that the killings occurred when Tsarnaev had begun to show signs of ‘radicalisation’. He apparently showed an abnormal reaction the murder of his friends, did not attend Mess’ funeral, and travelled to Russia for 6 months very soon after the murders occurred
Tsarnaev was a close friend of Mess and trained regularly with him in the gym. He had visited the property on numerous occasions, sometimes up to several times a week. Under the circumstances, it would be very surprising if there was no DNA linking him to the property. Furthermore, he was known to have several friends and contacts ‘in the area’ other than Mess, Weissman and Teken. So the notion that his use of a mobile phone somewhere ‘in the area’(which actually encompasses a 20 mile radius) at the time of the killings somehow implies guilt is nothing more than conjecture - or guess work of little, if any evidential value in court of law. The issue of Mess’ missing gun being tied to the murder of Sean Collier is an equally contentious one. Why attempt to insinuate it was the same weapon when there is never any prospect of proving such an allegation? An implication is not evidence: it’s a speculation that can never be verified.
And is ‘evidence’ of Tsarnaev’s apparent lack of emotion after the death of his friends really indicative of his alleged murderous acts? Tsarnaev was alleged to have ‘laughed off’ the murders at the time and repeated words to the effect:
'It’s crazy right? I guess if you [sell drugs], that’s what’s going to happen'
Yet what many fail to realise is that Tsarnaev himself also sold drugs. This may not of been a statement of indignation (if it was ever uttered at all) but merely a statement of fact. Could there have been another reason for Tsarnaev’s absence from the funeral of his friend, other than the notion that he murdered him?
Yes. If the homicides were a result of vengeance and/or an exemplary punishment amongst drug gangs (as authorities initially stated) it is highly likely Tsarnaev knew exactly who was responsible for them. As such, the ‘message’ from the barbaric killings clearly got through.
Another point that seems to have somehow eluded investigators is of an entirely practical nature: The Waltham 3 were known drug dealers and lived in a world that reflected that. Tsarnaev and Todeshev (and anybody with a modicum of common sense) would realize just how dangerous and menacing a world that can be. They would of known that the three victims were likely to of been armed. They also would of known that Mess, Weissman and Teken were all physically very strong, incredibly fit, and had MMA training. Why would they go in there outnumbered?
Furthermore Mess, Weissman and Teken were found in three separate rooms with their throats slashed, yet there were no indications that they fought back against their attackers. Did these strong, fighting men simply sit there and wait to be killed when they realized what was happening?
'Mess once challenged a person who tried to rob him at gunpoint in Cambridge, said a friend who witnessed the incident' Mess approached his assailant and said, “Pull the trigger. Do what you have to do”
“Brendan was nobody to mess with,” the friend said. “He wouldn’t lay down and get his throat cut”
How could just two men take control of a situation like that?
The ‘mounting evidence’ in this case is nothing of the sort, and claims by authorities to the contrary are quite dumbfounding, especially in view of other individuals who had the means and crucially, the motive, to inflict such brutality on the three. Add to the mix an investigating force riddled with corruption, and it becomes an increasingly difficult to accept that authorities have accused the right men: Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Ibragim Todeshev.
So who else could have committed the murders, why did they act, and how did they reach that stage?
One obvious reason stems from their connections to the criminal world. Were any of the men police informants either individually, or collectively as a group? All three men certainly fit the profile of a sought after informant and the evidence strongly suggests they could have been approached with such a proposition on numerous occasions. Court records indicate that all three were known to police and had been previously charged with various offences ranging from drug possession to violence. Weissman, in particular, was facing serious charges after a search was conducted at his home in January 2011 during which police seized more than $21,000 in cash, along with drug paraphernalia and a wide assortment of drugs, including marijuana, hashish, cocaine, and Oxycontin. He had also expressed an interest in advancing himself further in the drugs trade - another very real bone of contention for any rival drug dealers.
The men were clearly operating in a dangerous world and what’s more, the very people who had vowed to ‘protect and serve’ were right there with them. Only in Boston, they were doing quite the opposite.
**Determine whether he was moving…so they could shoot another 100 rounds? It allowed them to determine that he wasn’t wearing a bomb vest? Really? So the repeated requests for him to lift his shirt and the cops flipping him around like a pancake was overkill? Ya don’t say. **
Law enforcement didn’t pull any punches during its manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers, going so far as to lock down an entire metropolis while they searched. Even when officers thought they had the second suspect cornered in Watertown boat, they confirmed their suspicions with a camera that can spot people from up to 10 miles away. Just to be sure.
Developed by the FLIR corporation, it’s known as the Star SAFIRE III. This multi-imaging system consists of a 15-inch gimbal packed with a 640 x 480 Forward Looking Infrared camera operating at the 3-5 μm wavelength, as well as an optional color zoom camera, spotter scope, low-light camera, 25km laser rangefinder, pointer, and illuminator. Altogether the unit weighs about 100 pounds, which makes it small enough to fit on helicopters and planes the size of Cesnas, it’s also been utilized as optional equipment for the Predator Drone, according to Andy Teich, President of FLIR.
"One of the unique capabilites of the camera is that…[it’s] imaging in the midwave region, which is the three to five micron range of the spectrum," Teich told Gizmodo. "There are many plastics that become transparent in those wavelengths. And in this case, the boat had one of these shrinkwrap coverings—opaque plastic shrink wrap covering—and the SAFIRE saw right through that covering."
The result? The now famous monochrome images of the second Boston Marathon Bombing suspect moments before his capture. "This proved particularly useful in this case," Teich continued, "because they were able to see the suspect lying in the boat, determine if he was moving or not, evaluate whether he was holding anything or was wearing a bomb vest" and were instead able to evaluate the situation without putting officers in undue danger.
The SAFIRE III is one of the most widely used FLIR systems available with more than 500 in service worldwide. While technically available for purchase by the public, you’re going to need to throw down a cool half million dollars for one of your own.
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