The judge in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has denied another motion by the defence to delay the trial in the wake of the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
The second stage of jury selection in the trial of Tsarnaev, who is accused of involvement in the Boston Marathon bombing, is scheduled to start on Thursday.
Tsarnaev’s legal team quoted sources which said the parallels between the attacks in Paris and the 2013 Boston bombing were striking, and said that the similarities – and their psychological effects – “cannot be lost on potential jurors”.
“Even though the panels have been instructed not to read media reports about this case”, the defence said, “the probability of exposure to reports of the Paris events, which began before all of the jurors were instructed, is exceedingly high”.
On Tuesday, they requested that jury selection be suspended for “at least one month”.
However, on Wednesday, Judge George O’Toole denied their motion, saying that his review of the jurors’ questionnaires had “confirmed rather than undermined” his judgement that a fair and impartial jury can be chosen.
Previous such motions by the defence, including the request that the trial be held in a federal court outside Massachusetts, have been consistently denied.
The second part of the jury selection process, “voir dire,” is when lawyers for the defence and the prosecution, as well as the judge, cross-examine potential jurors to attempt to determine their ability to provide a fair and balanced verdict.
