Lawyers for the ‘Boston Bomber’ Want to Bring the Entire Boat Where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Hid During Final Showdown to Court So Jury Can See the Bloodstains, Bullet Holes, and Confession Note He Scrawled Inside

Lawyers for the ‘Boston Bomber’ Want to Bring the Entire Boat Where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Hid During Final Showdown to Court So Jury Can See the Bloodstains, Bullet Holes, and Confession Note He Scrawled Inside

Defending a terrorist who helped commit one of the most horrific attacks on American soil in history can’t be an easy job, but lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev seem to be grasping at straws with their latest plans. His defense attorneys want to bring the entire boat Tsarnaev hid to the courtroom so the jury can see all the gory details from his showdown with police.

bloody boat

Prosecutors want panels of the boat in which Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found hiding to be brought to court to show jurors what they say is his written confession. His lawyers want them to see the entire bullet-ridden boat.

Prosecutors have said Tsarnaev scrawled the motive for the attack inside the boat. They say he referred to U.S. wars in Muslim countries and wrote, among other things, ‘Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.’

During a final pretrial hearing Monday, Tsarnaev attorney William Fick objected to the plan to bring pieces of the boat to court and suggested instead that the boat be brought to the courthouse so the jury can see the entire boat.

He argued that the jury would be seeing the writing out of context if the panels were brought into the courtroom. To see the whole boat would allow the jury to imagine Tsarnaev lying inside ‘much like someone lying in a crypt making those writings,’ Fick said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb argued that it would be impractical to bring the entire boat to the courthouse and that there are photographs of it that can be shown to the jury. He suggested that the defense wants the jury to see the boat —which contains bullet holes, blood stains and broken glass — to gain sympathy for Tsarnaev.

Tsarnaev’s lawyers also asked Judge George O’Toole Jr. to exclude autopsy photos of the three people killed in the bombings. More than 260 people were hurt.

All of this seems fairly irrelevant — so what if Tsarnaev thought he was dying? It doesn’t seem to make much sense that someone would make a false confession on their deathbed just for kicks and giggles, but again, these lawyers don’t have much of a defense to work with here. One can hardly blame them for going with such a desperate plea.

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