Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev asked a judge Friday to delay his trial, saying "barriers of distance, language, and culture," aggravated by the sheer amount of investigative materials, mean they can't be ready by Nov. 3, when he's scheduled to face charges that could bring the death penalty.
Tsarnaev's lawyers argued the November date — 16 months after he was indicted in the deaths of three people and the injury of more than 260 others in the April 15, 2013, bombings — is only "half the median preparation time that federal courts have allowed defendants on trial for their lives over the past decade." They asked the judge to push back the trial to no later than Sept. 1, 2015.
If Tsarnaev is convicted of using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death, the current trial calendar could place his sentencing near the second anniversary of the bombings, which could produce a surge of highly emotional publicity as his sentence is being determined.
IN-DEPTH
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SOCIAL
— Tom Winter and M. Alex Johnson