11 Years Ago Today, A Brutal Act of Terror

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:52 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1023. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and I'm joined by Casey. I want to introduce you first. How's it going, Casey?

0:01:02 Casey: Good. How's it goin'?

0:01:03 Thomas: It's a pleasure to have you. I am so excited that, you know, I relegated Matt. So Matt, Matt, you're also joining us today.

0:01:11 Matt: Yeah, that's right. I'm pushing through the wall on Marathon Monday. Beautiful day.

0:01:11 Thomas: Cool. Interesting series. Well, there's several things to cover. First of all, it's Arlo's birthday. So that was number one. Secondly, it is tax day. Thirdly, I remember the other day when we were talking about Trump jury selection starting on both tax day and Arlo birthday. I'm sure that is beginning, although obviously we're recording a little bit before that, so we're not bringing any any detailed coverage of that. But there's something else that is occurring on this day and something, Matt, you've been talking about wanting to cover on the show for a while.

0:01:20 Matt: Happy birthday, Arla.

0:01:42 Matt: Means a lot to both of us because Casey and I have been Boston residents for, what, 18 years now? Is that right? And we

0:01:47 Casey: Yeah, and I also went to college here as well. Cool. Day tomorrow. And for what it's worth, our not due until Tuesday because of Patriot Day.

0:01:54 Matt: Yes, we get a holiday, a very made-up special holiday.

0:01:58 Thomas: Is New England Patriots? Are you celebrating Tom Brady and Bill Belichick?

0:02:00 Casey: It is A Massachusetts-based holiday that I think is mainly, as as Boston is concerned, it seems to me like it takes place because of the the fact it coincides with the Boston Marathon, and so everybody gets a day off. Uh, I, I think that the actual reason for it is, right, the, I believe it was when the the rebel, was when the Revolutionary War started out. In Lexington and Concord, yeah.

0:02:22 Matt: Yeah, I'm Lexington Concord. Yeah.

0:02:24 Casey: Uh,

0:02:24 Thomas: Okay, so it's not about the comeback over the Falcons. Okay, all right. I mean, that was a really good Super Bowl. You should probably add that to it at least. You Isn't it? Don't we have a president's day? That's the, you know, Lincoln's and somebody's birth. I don't know. I don't know anything about that shit, but I know there's one. That's like two things. Yeah. Equal importance. I feel like that Falcons game. I'm not a Patriots fan, but like, I recognize that we're talking about Boston. So, you know, okay.

0:02:28 Casey: Yeah.

0:02:30 Matt: Someday, give

0:02:48 Thomas: Well, well, yeah, we'll see.

0:02:48 Matt: It 20 years, it might be the same day. Yeah, that's true. Could get there.

0:02:54 Casey: So, Besides just being Marathon Monday, which is, like I said, I think what most people in Boston think of Patriots Day as being, is it also, unfortunately, is the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, which took place 11 years ago on April 15th of 2013.

0:03:09 Thomas: It's been, hold on, how many years? Three years? Four years? What No, sorry, I don't believe that. Fake news. I don't like that. No, very Matt's wanted to talk about this for a while. So after the break that patrons at patreon.com/law do not have to hear. Get more into that in the jury selection and the Trump case, all that stuff.

0:03:12 Casey: 11 years.

0:03:17 Matt: Yeah,

0:03:32 Casey: On April 15th of 2013, like we said, it was Patriots Day. It's Marathon Monday in Boston. My recollection is it was, it was a pretty nice day. It was sunny. It Was kind of a little, Uh, chilly, but you know, it was a nice spring day. And so I shouldn't say everybody has a day off, but all state workers have the day off and, and quite a a few, few other people and state offices are closed, courthouses are closed and so forth. And so, uh, I'd at least taken a walk down to the park by the Harbor, um, in the neighborhood in Boston where we live.

And I, know, I stopped at Matt's office the way back as his office was actually open. Uh, I walked home and I started started to hear like more sirens than I think I'd ever heard and the funny thing is is it wasn't immediately reported, um, what was going on and I originally saw it on Yahoo.ca, which is Yahoo Canada, because I googled to see what you might be going on because the the stream of sirens was just constant and, you know, I saw this news story come up from Yahoo Canada and then obviously I put on the TV and saw it was happening and texted people I knew that were at the marathon finish line.

But basically what had happened was that two bombs had gone off at the finish line on Boylston Street, almost one after another within, I think, within about a minute of each other, in the middle of the afternoon, a little bit before 3 o'clock, I think 2:49 p.m., at the point in the day at which everyone over the finish finish line at that point in the day is a normal average person who's running the marathon. Like it's

0:03:40 Matt: It was. And

0:04:52 Thomas: I never

0:04:52 Casey: Not, yeah.

0:04:53 Thomas: Thought about that. So was it purposefully timed to be like the bulk of when kind of people finish? Because I imagine like anything else, there's a bit of a bell curve of Like how that tends to go.

0:05:03 Casey: I would, I would imagine so. I mean, the people that it turned out did it were, know, they lived here. I, I Would assume that they were, they'd lived here for a while. I would assume that they They, were familiar with that as

0:05:12 Matt: At the same time, if it hadn't been the finish line, the casualties would have been a lot worse because there were EMTs and medical tents right there to support the runners. So we had a lot of people ready to go. And sadly, of course, three people died on the spot, but there were so many injuries. I was actually helping a friend move on Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. And she called somebody who was there when we started to hear what was going on, and she just went white and she said, it sounds like there's so many people dead. Because that was the impression. That's what everybody thought at first, when you have a giant bomb going off in the middle of a crowd like that. Only thanks to fast-working EMTs and medical professionals, so many more people could have lost their lives.

0:05:39 Thomas: Yeah. Right.

0:05:49 Casey: Didn't realize you were in Jamaica playing that. It's funny. Cause I, like I said, I know I stopped at your office, um, the way home from the park, but I didn't remember, I guess you might not have been there.

0:05:51 Matt: Yeah. Took the afternoon. It was a nice day. And it always is a beautiful day. I mean, that's almost always. I hope it is tomorrow too. Even emphasize what it means for the city of Boston, what that day is. It's one of the best days in the city to be out and just to enjoy it. It really is a nice reminder after the winter that we really do have a beautiful city.

0:06:11 Casey: Yeah. I mean, and everybody knows somebody who, who runs that. Like it's not, you one OF my coworkers, um at the time was actually, uh, you know, very close to the finish line at that point. And I've actually never seen this photo. Um, but from what I understand, she's actually in one of the photos, uh, that time period, she she was not injured, physically, um, but, yeah, I mean, I think everybody everybody, knows somebody that runs that, race or, or that was at that race.

0:06:31 Matt: And the thing after that, after the immediate shock of the bombing and the memorials and everything, is that these two people were still out there. We had pictures of them. There's a massive manhunt going. About

0:06:38 Thomas: Right? Yeah. The next thing I remember, sorry to interrupt you, but the next thing I remember was stupid anonymous posting, like the, um, pictures and being like, find this person. It was some nothing on a rooftop. And never forget. Cause it was was, just it one of those things. Bunch of idiots who, that this means that that's all of anonymous. I don't really know, you Know, like obviously don't know who the entire group is, but like that in particular were trying to do, I don't know if they were fresh off some other victory they had or something, but they were trying to do some detective work. And it was like, this person's on top of a building and they're not concerned and everyone else. And you're just like, come on, man, this is so stupid.

0:06:49 Matt: Yeah.

0:06:52 Casey: Oh, yeah.

0:07:21 Matt: So bad.

0:07:21 Thomas: I

0:07:22 Matt: This is a big thing at Casey's, actually. Exactly.

0:07:23 Casey: Was bad. Like it, it, was really, so even before they released those those photos, right? Because they, when this happened, know, the, the crime scene was enormous. It was, it was just blocks and blocks of the city of Boston. And a lot of people had dropped their phones. There were hundreds of cell phones that were on the street. And so the FBI was going through those phones. They were going through the surveillance videos.

0:07:23 Matt: Yeah,

0:07:42 Casey: So they didn't actually come up with those pictures of the suspects until, I think it, I Think it was Thursday. If it wasn't Thursday, it Was Wednesday. It Was, It Was several days later. They didn't release them until then. And we'll, we'll get to that in a second. But But even prior to that, like you said, know, people the, on Twitter, people on Reddit were, posting these, these photos and pulling things, things from surveillance videos and, you basically maligning people in some cases were victims. Like in one case, I believe that an individual was, he was a Saudi national, I think, and he was actually in a hospital, uh, because he'd been, he'd been injured due to the bombing. And they, they started posting about this person saying that he was was a suspect. And the media ran with this. And it was the first

0:07:42 Thomas: Didn't think of that.

0:07:50 Matt: It was days. Yeah.

0:08:06 Thomas: Wow. Jeez. Wow,

0:08:21 Casey: Time I've ever seen this happen, and I think it's the only time I ever seen it happen to this degree, that both the local and national media were reporting on totally unverified statements from people online, like on Twitter, on Reddit, totally unvarified, and saying things like, "Well, we have no idea if this is true or not, but we're just going to report this. They were reading things off their phones from, from social media.

0:08:21 Matt: So bad.

0:08:31 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. And

0:08:44 Matt: It was a bad day on CNN. Sorry.

0:08:46 Thomas: That, I any super young people. I that didn't used to be how they did it. At least legitimate news sources. Now, I think that's pretty much how it's done. But yeah,

0:08:52 Matt: No.

0:08:50 Casey: Yeah. It was, it was crazy. And it only got worse once they released those photos. Right. Which I think my understanding is the FBI did not really want to release those photos because they were concerned.

0:08:54 Matt: Yeah?

0:08:57 Thomas: Which one are you talking about now? Sorry, which which photos?

0:09:05 Casey: Oh, so the actual photos of the suspects. Yeah, So my understanding is, is that the FBI not really wanna release those photos when they did because because they were concerned that what would happen would be exactly what did happen later on that night. But released they the photos of the two suspects basically under pressure because somebody had leaked the photos to the media and were going to publish them anyway. And so the FBI calls a press conference, they release the photos, and at that point it gets even worse with the online, I don't know if trolls is even the word, but with the online people vigilante, sleuths,

0:09:06 Thomas: No. OK, yeah.

0:09:24 Thomas: Oh, wow. Yeah. Vigilantism, maybe. Or yeah. Yeah.

0:09:35 Matt: Yeah, totally.

0:09:37 Casey: I don't know.

0:09:37 Thomas: Sleuth.

0:09:39 Casey: But at that point, they decide that one of the suspects, actually, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, they, they decided that, he looks like a kid, a college kid from Providence. Yeah. Who had been missing for a few weeks at that time. And unfortunately, who was already deceased because he had died by suicide, although his body had not been found.

0:09:49 Thomas: Shit, that's right. Oh, Wow. Completely forgot about this.

0:10:01 Casey: So bad because I remember seeing those photos and seeing them reporting about this on TV, the fact that people were saying that, and I'm not even going to say his name because I think it's so shitty that his family was put through this, but they, they're reporting this on tv that it had been confirmed that he was one of the suspects, and that was, it was of course absolutely not true, but I remember saying it and seeing the photo and thinking that that looks absolutely nothing, like it looks nothing like the missing college student from Providence, and like I said of Of course it was not. But over the course of the next day or so, these people just began harassing the family members of the missing college student from Providence, like nonstop.

0:10:10 Thomas: Wow.

0:10:40 Thomas: Awful.

0:10:40 Casey: And they had to take down a Facebook page to try to find him. They were calling them in the middle of the night. It was, it was really, really bad. Really, disgusting, honestly. And then,

0:10:47 Thomas: Hey, everyone listening to us. Can you just chill? Like I don't know, hopefully it's none of you, but like you're not helping, like you, you're not, if unless you are one of the people literally involved in the investigation, you're probably doing, no, there's zero, almost no chance you're helping, and there's a pretty good chance you hurting, like literally getting a poor family, I mean, obviously that's going through like the worst thing, and then getting harassed based on the other worst thing that could could possibly happen, like that's terrible, so

0:11:14 Casey: Yeah, it really was, it was really awful. And like I said, obviously it was was not him, and he was unfortunately found um in the river in Providence um know shortly thereafter, but yeah, it was it was really sad, and and of course it became relatively quickly clear that it was not him, because what the FBI had been concerned about by releasing those photos came to pass, which is that the suspects became spooked, um, the suspects being Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, uh, they decided to, they decided they were going to get out of the city of Boston because their photos were plastered everywhere. And for what it's worth, I don't necessarily think it was a bad thing to release those photos. I'm not sure what other options they had at that point to identify them.

0:11:53 Thomas: Have the worst memory and was far away from this, so that your foreshadowing is actually great for me, because I'm like, geez, that I have no idea what you're about to say, um, so were they like at the position where they just had no leads, or was it like they were forced to release them, kind of as you said, because someone leaked them, but they already had a handle on it? Interesting.

0:12:10 Casey: It was A combination of both. So they were forced to release them because somebody had leaked them to the media. But from what I understand, and to be frank, I understand this partly from watching a documentary on Netflix. Didn't remember this, but from what I understand, there's some suggestion that the Boston police may have disagreed with the FBI on whether or not to release them, and then the media got a hold of the of at least one of the photos, and that forced the FBI's hand, but from from what it sounds like, they did not have a handle on who it was at that point, and that's why there was a disagreement between BPD and

0:12:30 Thomas: Oh like they didn't even have a handle on who it was, I was, I, so the way I was thinking of it was they just had no idea where they were, but oh okay But

0:12:43 Casey: No no no, I don't think they

0:12:49 Matt: They really didn't know.

0:12:50 Casey: Knew who they were. Bomb

0:12:51 Matt: They were calling them Black Hat and White Hat, because that's all they knew about them. But the White Hat was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and what they did have him on video doing was walking up behind a group of children, including eight-year-old Martin Richard, and placing his backpack down, started standing around for a few minutes, and then just walking away. Way. And you can see as the bomb is going off, everybody else, of course, is looking to where the bomb was, and he's still looking straight ahead.

0:12:51 Thomas: That's right, uh

0:13:11 Matt: So they knew that was their guy.

0:13:11 Casey: Number one which bomb number one goes off, that's that's the one that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, his brother, has placed a little bit further down Boylston Street, and then, like Matt said, when bomb number one goes off, everybody looks down the street to see what the noise is, um, I think honestly people might have thought it was a gas explosion or a manhole cover or something but they look down the street, and the only person that does not is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, or the person, the white hat, at that point, and he instead turns and starts walking in the opposite direction, and then, I than a minute later, seconds, I think, detonates the second bomb, which was in the bag that he'd placed right behind that family, including an eight-year-old child and his um his his younger sister and his brother, Martin Richard, dying.

His other family members are seriously, seriously injured, including his sister, who has to have a leg amputated, and two other women are killed. Crystal Campbell, killed by the bomb that Tamerlan placed, and Lingzi Liu, who is a student, a graduate student at Boston University, is killed by the bomb, I believe, that the Dzhokhar placed.

0:13:32 Thomas: I I gotta say, again, not having a firm memory on it, I would have guessed that a lot more than three people died, though. So So I guess, as you say, very fortunate that, um, in some ways, and if I remember right, it was the kind of thing where like, based on the nature of the bomb, it was like, that was, there were a lot of amputations because it was kind of the, the shrapnel delivered kind of low foot level. And then, you know, of course, um... Some other people were just horribly unlucky, I imagine. Uh, was it, was, is that right? Is that my memory right?

0:14:25 Casey: Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah. Yeah, that's Exactly what it was. They're it was low to the ground because of where they were placed. And so because one of them was placed right behind those children, obviously, I think the children are both lower to the ground and closer to the, yeah, there were a lot of amputations, like a lot, lot of people, honestly, like had there not been the type of medical facilities very nearby, the scheme of things, like, you know, we have a lot of hospitals pretty close by, uh, like Matt mentioned, we have the medical tents right there, there were a lot of police officers right there at the finish line, you know, who, who also, many of whom have medical training, um, and because of that, I think that probably is why there were not there were no more deaths. Yeah.

0:14:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:15:16 Matt: Best and worst kind of place to do an act of mass terror, honestly, depending on goals. But yeah, so at that point, I mean, I would have expected, I was fully expecting, just as somebody who was in the city at the time, that these people would have gotten out of Boston, but they just went home and they hung out.

0:15:18 Thomas: Mm -hmm. Yeah. Hmm.

0:15:30 Matt: And they also had Russian passports and they could have gone and left the country, and they instead hung out at home. And so at the point at which they see their pictures on TV, they start to worry and they start making plans to go to New York. Plan, as we understand it, was that they were going to go to Times Square and blow up a couple more pressure cookers.

0:15:46 Thomas: Oh, Wow. Wow.

0:15:47 Matt: I realistic that was, but they had everything with them.

0:15:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:49 Casey: At the point at which those photos are released, they decide that they're gonna, they're to New York, um, to Times Square and blow up the other devices. And in Cambridge, they live in Cambridge, which is across the river from Boston, um, and that's that's a Middlesex County, Boston in Suffolk County.

And so they head to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, to try to basically, they, I don't know if they intentionally went to MIT or if they were just looking for a police officer because they needed additional firepower hours. So, um, they find a police officer on, know, college campus police officer, Sean Collier, who is sitting in his car on the MIT campus.

And they have, at that point, they have one gun and they have one gun because Dzhokhar's friend has either given them or sold them one gun and they want a second one to carry out the rest of their plan. And so, uh, they open up the door to Sean Collier's car.

He's sitting there essentially doing traffic duty, like parking violations, I think, um, and they shoot him in the head repeatedly, um, obviously this is a unusual circumstance, uh, the MIT campus, uh, police start responding there really quickly, but at that point obviously they've, they've left and they've carjacked, um, student, I, I think, think it's Dun Meng, um, Chinese student who's, know, who's living in Boston or in the Boston area, and he's just gotten himself a new car.

And he's pulled over for a moment on the side of a road that's relatively close to MIT, and he's texting a friend. You know, he's doing the right thing because he's not texting and driving. He pulls over, and two of them, the two brothers, carjack him, force him to drive to an ATM and withdraw money, so they also rob him.

0:17:16 Matt: The First thing they tell him is that they're there, that they are the marathon bombers, they don't Hide That, yeah.

0:17:19 Casey: And Yeah.

0:17:19 Thomas: Weird. Oh.

0:17:21 Matt: Yeah. Not

0:17:21 Casey: And then They tell him what they're, what planning to do during the course of this drive, that that they're planning to to go to New York and bomb Times Square with the pressure cooker bombs, um, they make him drive, you kind of a somewhat circuitous route, which is which is odd, but they make them drive essentially like towards Watertown, Massachusetts, which is slightly outside of Boston, you know, on the other side of Cambridge. And they stopped to get snacks at one point at gas station. And Tamerlan makes Dzhokhar go in to buy snacks. And there's this video of Dzhokhar, like, a bunch of chips or attempting to. And at that point, the, now, the young man who's the owner of the car manages to escape, he jumps out of the car, He runs away, they actually initially tried to chase him, and he manages to to escape, and he goes to a nearby gas station and, you know, begs to be let in, and he informs the police what, what has happened and what they've told him.

And the the two brothers continue at that point on to Watertown, because as I said, they were, I think, very close to, at that point, they continue on in the in the car, um, onto Watertown, uh, which point they, they get stopped in Watertown. And strange, the thing is, I'm pretty sure at that point they, Watertown police were not, not actually aware when this initially happened, that these two people were the people alleged to be the Boston Marathon bombers.

I think that what they'd heard, from what I understand, was that there had been a carjacking and a possible robbery. And so I think that they were probably somewhat surprised when the two brothers engaged in a firefight with them in the streets of Watertown, which is the suburb of Boston, and they start throwing pressure cooker bombs at the police.

0:17:54 Thomas: Wow. Oh. My gosh, wow.

0:18:48 Casey: Yeah, and one of the brothers, Tamerlan, empties an like entire clip at place. You, projectiles are shot back and forth. Tamerlane gets shot repeatedly during the course of this, and yet he keeps going. And he actually starts wrestling with one of police officers who's trying to arrest him. At this point, you know, both the police officer and he are either out of ammunition or the gun is jammed or something. They're wrestling on the ground, and Dzhokhar gets into one of the cars, and I genuinely don't remember if it's his car or the car they've carjacked at that point, and he runs his brother over, like, he drives him over, and I think he might even back up and drive him over again. Or the point is is that Tamerlan actually, uh, alive, although he'd been shot a number of times, until his brother ran him over and dragged him under the car, uh,

0:19:21 Thomas: Wow.

0:19:32 Matt: Every death is a tragedy, no?

0:19:33 Thomas: Was That, yeah, was that intentional, or, like, was it like, you know, because they planned on killing themselves, or no? Okay.

0:19:39 Matt: Seems like he's getting off the scene as quickly as Possible, yeah. Very

0:19:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:41 Casey: I would assume So I think it is pretty chaotic, uh, there's There's actually A Really, There's a really excellent report that's available online that was written by the Middlesex District Attorney's Office about the officer-involved shooting in Watertown that night. Because, like I said, Tamerlan was shot, so the DA's office has to do an investigation of that. There's, like, a very detailed, very well -written report of that, if anybody has any interest in more about that. But, um, at that point Dzhokhar, I guess, hops out of the car and kind of takes off and gets lost in the chaos of this, and what ensues after that is a manhunt that lasts for the next day or so because he just kind of disappears into the night, and, uh, yeah.

0:19:43 Thomas: Sure. I Just Wasn't sure, yeah.

0:20:20 Matt: Strange time in Boston, very Strange, I Can't even tell you, you know, they've got like tanks out in the streets Of Watertown, and they're locking down the city of Boston and telling us not to leave our houses because He could be Anywhere were in the city. And we'd thought he was already well out of the city by then.

0:20:22 Thomas: No kidding. Tanks

0:20:22 Casey: It Was So Weird. It was just, yeah, we really did, like, it was juste the weirdest thing, they were doing like a grid search, and they, they have, you know, soldiers and national guardsmen, and like every, like literally like every single state trooper, local police. Was absolutely crazy. Like Matt said, there were, there were tanks and military vehicles in the streets of Watertown. They're going door to door. Yeah. Tanks like actual tanks.

0:20:50 Matt: Well, ATVs or something. I don't know. They were big

0:20:51 Casey: No, I, I think they, I Think they might have tanks. Like, I Mean, it, was crazy, like large military vehicles. Um they went door door -to -door searching people's homes.

0:20:53 Matt: Vehicles. Yeah.

0:20:59 Thomas: Like I feel like it wasn't tanks. That would be it would be weird if it was tanks. I'm just saying, was it did they plan on shelling an entire, uh, block or something like

0:21:02 Casey: Maybe. I mean, the whole thing was pretty weird. I mean they were really treating it like, I yeah, in retrospect the fact it was one kid and like I understand I, you know, what the kid had done was so bad, but when they actually finally caught him the next day, he was hiding in a boat in someone's backyard.

0:21:11 Thomas: A military thing and I was gonna say, I remember something

0:21:24 Casey: Yard.

0:21:24 Thomas: About a boat, and then I wasn't sure if I just made that up. It was just some random person's boat. Wow.

0:21:26 Casey: Now he's hiding in a boat. Yeah, it was somebody in their backyard in Watertown. And it was actually right after the lockdown had been lifted. Know, they they claimed they'd done this grid search, you knows, step -by -step, shoulder -to -shoulder. They'd searched all these houses. And this guy goes outside, I think to smoke a cigarette, maybe, like in the back of his house when they lift the lockdown. And he notices there's blood on the outside of his boat that he has in his backyard.

0:21:51 Thomas: Geez.

0:21:52 Casey: And he goes and he kind of looks, and he sees that there's someone in it. He and lets the police know, and eventually they are able to remove him from the boat, and somehow he comes out of this alive, despite the fact that there is, again, a lot of people shooting, not him, ends up coming alive, and in photos he small, he looks really young. He's injured, obviously, because he's been shot at point.

And on the inside of the boat, and this is relevant at trial and in the penalty phase, he's ridden this kind of screed on the outside of the ship, you know, waging jihad, and, you how they don't actually want to kill people, but they're killing people because of the fact that we, meaning Americans, are killing Muslims, and, you know, Muslims are one people and one body, and they're standing up for the Muslims of the world, essentially, by the things that they had done.

Like I said, I think that is sort of relevant to what we'll get into in terms of the cases themselves. Yeah, at that point, he's, you known, he is arrested, he's brought in, he eventually charged with 30 federal counts. He's also indicted in Middlesex County, uh, murder for and armed robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, and and so forth. He's never tried on those charges, uh, know, because of the fact that he's tried federally instead on the 30 federal charges, and

0:21:53 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:00 Thomas: You know, one thing is always, um, whenever, know, whenever I'm watching a documentary about this or learning about these kinds of things, it's, it's a good thing that so many of these people are not the best and brightest criminals. You know? It's like, it really feels like, like, holy shit, they could have gotten away with it. It almost feels like who knows? I mean, I'm sure they would have been tracked down eventually, but like, what the hell? I mean they, they literally tell somebody, Hey, just in case you want to know, here's who we are and what's our thing. And then like, let them get away. And you're like one, guess I that's hopefully always going to be true, that the people who would do this kind of thing are not going to be, like, the sharpest, or they, I guess they don't care, maybe, about getting caught, but, wow.

0:23:12 Casey: Ha, ha, ha. Yeah.

0:23:12 Matt: Yeah, no. No, they could have. I mean, even just staying in the area was so stupid. I know. But there was one thing I wanted to mention before we go on to the trial, which was that Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. attorney at the time, announced in a press conference, this really caught everybody by surprise, eyes, that she was not going to be Mirandizing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev specifically. He was out after surgery, and so they were going to wake him up at some point and interview him. And she just wanted the public to know that they weren't going to read him as Miranda Rights. She just said it out loud because of the public safety which comes from U.S. v. Quarles in 1984. Definitely not supposed to be for this kind of thing where someone is safely in a hospital bed and there's you else going on.

0:23:55 Thomas: What?

0:24:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:15 Matt: It's supposed to be for an exogen ongoing thing when there might be, I don't know, some other bomb.

0:24:19 Thomas: What would be the point of announcing, hey, I'm going to, I mean, for almost no upside I have to imagine, I am going to maybe compromise the most important case ever, like, like why would, what is the upside there? Just looking really tough? Wow, that is dumb.

0:24:24 Matt: Such a good question. Thought. At the time, it was so bizarre. There's an FBI memo on top of Quarles that expanded this in some ways so that they could, but

0:24:40 Thomas: You know, one thing I always think when I'm learning about this stuff or watching documentaries is police and FBI, they're not very smart. Like, if they were a little smarter, they the best and brightest, you know? They would catch more people if they Were a little smarter is all I'm saying. Okay.

0:24:50 Matt: Right. Not always. Right, yeah. No, that's fair enough.

0:24:58 Thomas: Weird.

0:24:58 Matt: They didn't end up using any of the statements because I think they realized it would be too complicated and things that he said at that point. As I understand it, they didn't use them. Right. So he was charged and arrest was on April 19th of 2013. There was an attempt at a plea deal. It fell through and Attorney General Eric Holder announced on January 30th, 2014, that they would be seeking the death penalty in this case. Notice actually was filed of intent to seek the death penalty, which explained sort of their reasoning and why they thought there were extra factors here.

0:25:04 Casey: Yeah.

0:25:27 Thomas: Remind me how old the brothers were. They're definitely very young, right?

0:25:30 Matt: Very Dzhokhar was 19 and Tamerlan was 26 at the time of their death, as it does.

0:25:33 Thomas: Okay. I didn't remember the other one being that much older. Interesting.

0:25:36 Matt: Because part of the argument was that Tamerland was influencing his younger brother, which makes sense, right? You think of the difference between 26 and 19 and the way you follow your older brother. At the time, I just want to mention this because I thought it was interesting. In the government's notice when they're explaining they're going to be seeking the death penalty, have a broad range of things they can bring up as factors under 18 U.S.C. 3593. And they kind of made one up. They said, betrayal of the United States. I've never seen anything like this before. They say, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received asylum from the United States, obtained citizenship, and enjoyed the freedoms of a United States citizen, and then betrayed his allegiance to the United States by killing and maiming people in the United States. And I thought that was very interesting to hold it against him that he had received asylum in a way that for of have been held against, they would have sought the death penalty no matter what. They would have had their justifications, but it's a weird one.

0:26:18 Casey: Yeah.

0:26:21 Thomas: Yeah, it's sort of like, okay, sure. But like, does that mean it's not as bad if you or I had done it? Like,

0:26:28 Casey: Yeah.

0:26:29 Matt: Right. They wouldn't be seeking death if it weren't an asylum seeker. Yeah. A little weird.

0:26:29 Casey: Yeah.

0:26:33 Thomas: Just made that up that like that isn't a thing.

0:26:36 Matt: That's not an actual factor, but they're allowed to use a very broad range of factors when they justify what they're going to do with the death Penalty. And we need to talk about the federal death penalty another time. We've talked about the states. Really all it says is setting forth the aggravating factor. And factors about the extent and scope of the injury and loss, but there's no specifics about betrayal of the United States. That's just something they kind of pulled out.

0:26:57 Casey: They actually... to justify why they're seeking it? I mean, I guess I wasn't aware of that, that they, know, like we've talked about before, we don't have the death penalty on the state level, and we've only had two death penalty cases ever in Massachusetts, federal death penalty cases, I'm sorry, is one of them, so they actually have to justify why they're seeking the death penalty

0:27:15 Matt: Under 18 U.S.C. 3593, they have to file notice.

0:27:19 Thomas: Think we've all covered that we're anti -death penalty here, I believe. But like, is one where you're like, okay, I at least get it. And I feel like your justification could be like gestures broadly. Like, you don't, I, yeah. Okay.

0:27:26 Matt: Yeah, I've never once wished that Tamerlan lived to face trial. I don't care, to be honest. But that's different from having the government kill Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. I'm completely opposed to that.

0:27:37 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:39 Casey: I have minded actually, to be honest. It's not like I wish he'd lived or anything, but I think I would have preferred to have seen him stand trial. I don't know, that's my general, general feeling about these sorts of people. And I understand that there are victims that feel differently about this, but I personally would prefer to see people actually have to, justice, a public arena.

0:27:47 Matt: No, absolutely.

0:27:59 Matt: But like I said, not every death is a tragedy. Jury selection begins January 5th, 2015. And we were kind of trying to estimate last week about how long the Trump jury selection might take. And that is in a state case in which the details are not as well known. That's probably the only reason that it's going to be a little easier to get a Trump jury in New York, is because it's not a case that everyone knows the intimate details of. But of course, we're talking about Eastern Massachusetts, and Eastern Massachusetts jury is which going to be very, very aware of this event.

0:28:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:23 Matt: It's only a couple of years after, and it took two months to find a jury in this case, and for jury selection, and then trial began on March March 5th. And of course, in these kinds of cases, you've got a guilt phase where they have to determine if he's going to be convicted of the charges in front of the court, and then they move on to a penalty phase to determine if life in prison or the death penalty is more appropriate. And the guilt phase began with his lawyer basically standing up and saying he did it, and saying We're accepting responsibility for most of this, but that we're going to be arguing that his older brother Tamerlan was responsible for a lot of what happened, and that it should be a mitigating circumstance.

So the guilt phase ended April 8th, 2015, with guilt on all 30 counts, they were in front of the jury, jury recommended death after the penalty phase on May 15th, 2015. So the penalty, and it was another month or so, the penalty phase, they especially pushed this idea, which I'm certainly amenable to, that Tamerlan had a very strong influence on his younger brother, that he helped to radicalize him. Had been reading the Al-Qaeda magazine, Inspire, which included a recipe for these kinds of pressure cooker bombs. They'd been reading a radical cleric named Al-Awlaki. A whole other episode, probably, about the situation with him. They were clearly being radicalized.

And there is an argument, at least, that Tamerlan had a lot of influence over his younger brother. The and they on July 31st, 2020, but they vacated the death sentence and they found there were some issues that were enough to justify going back and redoing the penalty phase. Was pretty controversial for obvious reasons, but let do with the jury question.

And this is going to be a significant issue, obviously, in the Trump cases, where you're trying to figure out what the jury knows and how much they know about the actual defendant. Was a question put in front of the jury as list out everything you know, and the judge thought that was too much, that was too broad when the judge was reviewing the possible jury questions. And the judge struck, struck that one.

And instead, there were a number of other questions along the lines of how much media coverage have you seen? What outlets have you see? And what do you know about this case? But not just list out everything you know. And the First Circuit found, based on existing First Circuit case law having to do with a mob boss named Raymond Patriarca, that this was going to be an issue and that was enough.

0:28:26 Thomas: Wow. Yeah.

0:30:23 Matt: The defense was trying to get in evidence about a triple murder that had been committed in Waltham, Massachusetts, not too far away. This triple murder had been committed on December 11th, 2011. It wasn't exactly clear what was going on, but it was a drug -related murder. There was no question about that. The three victims were drug dealers. And there was a lot of reason to believe that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was involved, including a witness in Florida who specifically said that he and Tamerlan had carried this out, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had him killed.

0:30:52 Matt: Florida and then suddenly kind of got extremely violent and reactive, according to the FBI, in the middle of the interview and they shot him. So we don't have, yeah, was a very strange little footnote. The First Circuit found that there was enough here because the jury should have been allowed to hear about those murders and the possibility that Tamerlan Sanayev, even though this case was never solved, that the FBI had reason to believe that Tameron Sanayeb was responsible for them to some degree. And they thought, the First circuit thought, that this would have gone to the jury's understanding of what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev knew about his brother and what he was capable of. And I think that, I have to say, as a defense attorney, I think it's very important. I think he should have come in.

0:31:02 Thomas: Huh? Okay. Interesting. Oh,

0:31:30 Casey: You think the evidence of the Waltham unsolved triple homicide should have come in?

0:31:35 Matt: The penalty phase, I do, based on the way the law works for penalty phase. It shouldn't have come in for any other purpose, but it certainly should have, because it's a very low bar about

0:31:39 Casey: Yeah, I, yeah,

0:31:39 Thomas: Interesting. I didn't even think about that. That's okay. Can we talk about that? Because that's one Of the things that I think non lawyers would never even think about in a million years, where it's like you have One standard for the trial, I guess, like on the facts or whatever. And then you have another for the penalty phase, which, I mean, it makes sense what that standard to get stuff in for the penalty phase, that

0:31:44 Matt: It's an interesting question.

0:31:57 Matt: Yeah. We should talk about it now, I think. 18 U.S.C. 3593, and it's when you're talking about mitigating circumstances in the penalty phase. So notwithstanding any other rules of federal criminal procedure, there's no pre -sentence report the way they usually would be for sentencing. And may be presented as to any matter relevant to the sentence, including any mitigating or aggravated factor permitted or required to be considered under Section 3592. So this is extremely broad. Odd.

0:32:22 Casey: It also, and it also says the information is admissible regardless of its admissibility under the rules governing admission of evidence at criminal trials. Um, but it also says that the judge, the trial judge, can exclude information under the Federal Death Penalty Act if its probative value is outweighed by the danger of creating unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, or misleading the jury, which is relevant to the Supreme Court case down the road. And one I want emphasize too, which is that the Waltham murders are unsolved. That is still an open case that is uncharged. We can talk more, little bit more about that case. But I also think it's important just to note that the filed into death investigation in Walthham has never been made public. I don't believe

0:32:27 Matt: Yep. Very.

0:32:32 Thomas: Is right

0:33:05 Casey: It was made available or fully available to the parties in the federal trial. And that's because of the fact that open investigations are not, they are not public records. Obvious reasons, they are not generally turned over to anybody outside the investigating office. So I, it's just important to note that really not nobody except the investigators at the Middlesex DA's office are familiar with all of the facts associated with that crime. So I think everybody except those people who are familiar with it, who talks about this case, like really, we're really talking about it based on the very limited amount that's in the public record. And so I think that's worth noting.

0:33:16 Thomas: Yeah

0:33:46 Matt: Have to push back on that just for a minute, just to then for honest debate here, because the FBI did go and interview this person who said, now again, it was very much his interest to say that somebody else was involved in this murder and somebody who happened to be dead at that point, but they got enough out of this that they had probable cause to search Tamerlan Tsarnaev's car, um, know for what that's worth, and that's something that I think the jury should have known of

0:33:56 Thomas: Wow

0:34:02 Casey: Yeah, probable probable cause is, probable cause of pretty low standard. But like, even aside from that, Todashev, who's the individual in Florida that was friends with, with Tsarnaev. Mean, I would just point just out that my understanding is, is that some of the details that he provided were not necessarily consistent with the crime scene. And again, we don't, can't know. We can't know that for sure because of the fact that the we public does not have access to that file, um, I also reason to think that he was someone that was somewhat unhinged, as evidence from the fact that he completely flipped out, um, the police were interviewing him and attempted to assault them, I honestly can't remember if it's a sword or it was a stick or a

0:34:07 Matt: Course, sure. Well yeah, pole or something

0:34:40 Casey: Pole they like he charged at them. He was an MMA fighter, and they ended up shooting him repeatedly because, from what I understand, from what I recall, he kept getting up after even he'd been shot.

0:34:40 Matt: Yeah it was a weapon yeah

0:34:51 Thomas: I will note I don't put much stock into anything version of why they shot the hell out of somebody, I'm just a little skeptical of all that, yeah.

0:34:56 Casey: I don't

0:34:54 Matt: I've always wondered about this one, to be honest, but

0:35:00 Casey: To think that he had some significant problems, I think. I mean, and there's, you know, there's a number of articles that have been written about this. There's a book that recently came out that was written about Waltham murders that goes into some detail on this. I have to be honest, I didn't find it persuasive at, but interesting, because it does have some details about the interview in Florida and other witnesses involved with that triple homicide that might find interesting to review. View, but I, I just personally think that we're talking about something that is unsolved, it is open, and the facts that are known to the public and to the prosecution, the defense in this case, are are limited.

0:35:34 Thomas: Yeah

0:35:40 Matt: It's such an interesting question, though, of, I don't, I, this is very unusual, obviously, that you have a situation in which you have death penalty case where there's a dead person who's, who's a co-conspirator that everybody understands the co-inspirator, who may have actually been responsible for the deaths of three other people in a pretty violent and brutal murder. And I don't know, I just think the jury should hear that there's some possibility that this other person had something to do with that and may have had that kind of influence over his brother because of it, maybe.

0:35:44 Thomas: It's

0:35:57 Casey: No

0:36:07 Matt: I know it's

0:36:06 Thomas: Very interesting yeah it strikes me that like it seems like there's... there's two, I've never thought of it before, I guess, again, because it does seem like a pretty unique situation, but there's like two different levels at which, because like, okay, what are the typical things, or just give me an example of something that normally you can't bring in at trial for various reasons. Like sometimes there'll be like, oh, this person had a bunch of unpaid parking tickets from, you know, 2007 or something, something that's like irrelevant, but that would just be like character smearing, right? Isn't that typically a kind of thing that maybe wouldn't be allowed at trial?

0:36:09 Matt: Extenuated.

0:36:36 Matt: Yeah, all kinds of things.

0:36:37 Thomas: This, it strikes me that it's, it's another thing to be like, OK, at sentencing or penalty phase, whatever you called it, more of that stuff becomes at least admissible in some way. Right. But yeah, but it's one thing to be like, OK, yeah, now we can talk about these parking tickets or something, you know, pick your example, but another to be like, all right, there's rumors that this person might have had parking tickets, and it's, you know, it's like, it's almost like, like, two different levels of possibly questionable admissibility, maybe, where it's like, it's one thing to to say, okay, this is prejudicial in a way that's like, yeah, it's not really worth it or whatever, but then to also say, yeah, but also it's not even certain that it was him. Like, I don't know how to answer that question, actually.

0:36:46 Casey: It sounds like it, yeah, well,

0:37:17 Thomas: It's a really hard, yeah.

0:37:18 Casey: And the only the only people that can speak to it are dead, right? Like the individual that shot in Florida, Tadashev, and his brother are the only two that could speak to it. And to me, that seems like a significant problem. And what I said to Matt earlier when we were talking about this is I actually personally think that the better argument for the defense here, and they did sort of make this argument on appeal. I think that, I shouldn't say sort of, I think they did make this argue on appeal, I personally think the better argument is not whether or not he committed those murders, it's whether or or not his brother believed he committed those murders. And so, yeah,

0:37:22 Thomas: Yeah hmm oh that's interesting too, yeah.

0:37:53 Casey: Right. Because what matters is his state of mind and the amount of influence that his brother exerted on him. And so

0:37:55 Thomas: Yeah did they have any evidence as to whether or not the brother believed these things that he did these things, okay.

0:38:04 Casey: That to me seems sort of unclear. It says, so we'll get to, I guess, the Supreme Court decision in a second. But, you know, in the majority opinion, which is authored by one of our favorites, Justice Thomas, he says that there really wasn't any evidence of knowledge. But but in the dissent, which is written by Justice Breyer, I believe, he says that there was, in fact, evidence in the form of what potentially would have been testimony by one of Johar's friends that Johar told him that his brother had been involved in the Waltham triple murder.

0:38:40 Casey: And so to me, I actually think that is relevant. It sounded to me when we listened, we actually listened to the oral argument earlier at the Supreme Court, the recording of it. And it sounded to me like it wasn't entirely clear about that testimony would have been or how they proffered that testimony during penalty phase. But to me, that seems much more relevant and potentially admissible because it goes to his state of mind, and it doesn't turn into a mini trial of did Tamerlan do this or did Tamera not do this? Like, it doesn't matter if Tamerlan did it. What matters is whether or not the brother believed he did. At least that's how I see it.

0:38:40 Thomas: Yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense to me though, actually. Yeah, well, it sounds like ultimately you both would agree, maybe in some form, that it should be in there, it just depends on kind of in what form, right? Yeah.

0:39:19 Casey: And I understand what Matt's saying. I just, I don'T know. I, I just don't. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's true. And, and again, I DON'T really know procedurally exactly what at trial they tried to put in. It sounds like there was evidence that he knew. And so I personally think that it would make sense to allow that type of evidence in. Then.

0:39:28 Thomas: Yeah really episode is brought to you by ZBiotics Alright, let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. Days I seem to have to make a choice. I can either have a good night or a good next day, until I found ZBiotics. ZBiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works.

You drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day. ZBiotics produces an enzyme to break this by-product down. Just remember to make ZBiotics your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Every time I have a ZBiotics before drinks, I really do notice a difference the next day.

With vacations, weddings, birthdays, and reunions, and so much more going on, you can get the most out of your spring plans by stocking up on pre-alcohol now. Head to zbiotics.com/opening to get 15% off your first order when you use "opening" at checkout. ZBiotics is backed with a 100% money back guarantee, so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Head to zbiotics.com/opening and use the code "opening" at checkout for 15%. Thank ZBiotics for sponsoring this episode and our good times.

0:41:11 Casey: First Circuit vacates the death penalty, the sentence of death that was handed down against Dzhokhar for the reasons that Matt mentioned and that we were just talking about, which were the juror questionnaire and the admissibility of of information concerning the the Waltham triple homicide that, know, you Tamra may or may not have been involved in. It

0:41:30 Thomas: I So guess I didn't even realize, was did it admitted or not?

0:41:32 Casey: Was not admitted, no. It, in fact, they, my recollection is, is I, I think I don't even think that they got full discovery on on that matter. Like

0:41:39 Matt: Yeah. Think they mentioned that at Oral Argument. But there was information put in about Tamerlan Tsarnaev being violent and acting out in lots of other ways to other people, but obviously nothing even close to a murder.

0:41:50 Thomas: You say, obviously, I don't know.

0:41:52 Casey: Mean Tamerlan, was he, you know, he was a domestic abuser. He assaulted his girlfriend. I can't recall if he assaulted his wife, but he assaulted his girlfriend, he had a assault and battery charge in Cambridge District Court for that. He also was an MMA fighter. Also, I believe, had been involved in drugs at one point.

Traveled at one point to, I'm sorry, I honestly can't remember if it was Chechnya or Dagestan, in order to participate in some type of like terrorist training camp, which from a book I read on this, I think it was the one by Michelle McPhee called Mayhem, I think, which what I, what I recall in that book, it was sort of suggested, you know, he went to, to Dagestan to try to meet up with this terrorist group that perhaps, a cousin of some sort was involved with and apparently like it didn't go that well for him, kind of thought that he was an idiot, but you know, he returns to the United States having in some way, I uh guess, engaged to some limited degree with with whatever this terrorist training group is in that region, um, know re-enters the United States despite the fact that apparently, and Matt might remember this better than I do, um, apparently the the Russian, I don't know if it's the Secret Service or the equivalent of the FBI, had flagged for the United States the fact that this guy had been engaging with known terrorists in this region, Dagestan. And we apparently just did nothing about that.

0:41:53 Matt: Yeah, that's true.

0:41:57 Thomas: Oh, wow. Oh, Wow. Cool.

0:42:17 Matt: Dagestan. Yeah, yeah,

0:43:14 Casey: Yeah. So, yeah.

0:43:14 Thomas: What are they doing? Okay. That's separate topic.

0:43:17 Matt: Yeah.

0:43:18 Casey: Yeah, so anyway, I sort of did digress enough. The point is that Tamerlan had kind of a checkered background.

0:43:24 Thomas: Yeah. Not a good dude.

0:43:25 Casey: Ground that That, evidence about- about the FBI and terrorist training camps. I don't think that came in during the penalty phase, but like Matt said, like there was information that came in about him, like, flipping out on people at a mosque, I think, or something like that. I did do you know, Matt, did the assault and battery, yeah,

0:43:25 Thomas: Yeah, geez.

0:43:36 Matt: Getting into fights with strangers on the street and whatever. Yeah. No, there was plenty. Yeah under

0:43:39 Casey: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, nothing as bad as as a triple murder, but

0:43:44 Thomas: All of it would be evidence that like, hey, hey, maybe, what, he's the ringleader or the brother's scared of him or stuff like that. Yeah, sure.

0:43:51 Matt: His influence.

0:43:51 Thomas: It definitely makes sense that that should be under consideration when you're talking about penalty.

0:43:51 Matt: That was the idea.

0:43:52 Casey: Yeah. And I guess one other thing that we we should, I guess should mention, is is that they also suggested that Tamerlan had like taken on this like custodial role with his younger brother because his parents, I think they'd gotten divorced and they had headed back to to Russia. And so he had been left, you know, in the care of his older brother at that point. And to be fair, when I say in the car of, I mean, I'm not saying that he was a father figure, I think he was legally an adult.

0:44:20 Casey: But, brother you At that point, I think was the was suggesting was like a father figure to him. Circuit, they vacate the death penalty. The government appeals the First Circuit's decision, and that goes up to the Supreme Court. And so the Supreme Court considers those two issues, which were the, you know, the juror questionnaire issue and whether or not the evidence about the Waltham, the unsolved Waltham triple homicide should have been admitted during the penalty phase. The Supreme Court, in decision by our friend Justice Thomas, decides that the First Circuit has erred by concluding that death sentence should be vacated. They say that the district court, the trial court, did not abuse its discretion when it came to the juror questionnaire and excluding the evidence about the Waltham [murders] during the penalty phase.

0:44:20 Thomas: Mm -hmm. All

0:45:11 Matt: Also just the overall issue of change of venue, which raised twice to the first circuit and both times they rejected it. But a very similar issue to what Trump is trying to raise in the New York case, that he can't get a fair trial in New York, can't get a fair trial in D.C. because there's too many people too close to the situation. And the First Circuit pointed out in the change of venue motion in the response to that that the September 11th perpetrators were tried within feet of the Pentagon essentially, within miles of the Pentagon and in New York City. You And can get a fair trial more or less even if everybody in the area knows you and hates you. I thought there's an interesting line here that Justice Thomas quotes, an 1879 case, notorious crimes are almost as a matter of necessity brought to the attention of those informed citizens who are best fitted for jury duty. It's an interesting paradox.

0:45:52 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:45:53 Matt: Something like we've been talking about with the Trump case, right? That if you know the most about it, by necessity, you have a strong opinion about it because you're informed.

0:45:58 Thomas: Right.

0:46:01 Casey: I also, I just think, I think it's worth noting, and the Supreme Court does, and and the First Circuit later does when the case goes back down, is that nobody is entitled to a juror that knows nothing about your case. That's Not what you're entitled to. You're just entitled to, you know, a fair and impartial jury. And it would be really, really hard to find, I think in this area, to find jurors that had never heard anything about this case at all, not if impossible. Like, but as Matt said, the same thing with Trump, it's going to be pretty hard to find anyone that doesn't know something about it.

But you know, the truth is, is that some people pay more attention to the news and the details of the news than others. And I think there are also people that, I think, there actually are people out there that don't have strong opinions. Maybe not about Donald Trump himself, but about the case. And I think that probably also was the case with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, right? Like you said, I mean, I understand you're on the other side of the country.

But, you know, there are probably people in that jury pool that were not from this area originally. There are probably people that, maybe, you they're from Bristol County, Massachusetts, or Cape Cod that, maybe, they're not super into the Boston News. That area, county, they get Providence news stations. You think know, everyone in this area was aware that this had happened.

It was covered heavily, but two years later, you now, I'm not sure the degree to which, like, every member of the jury pool would have formed an opinion um the defendant's guilt or not.

0:46:14 Thomas: Yeah, okay.

0:47:20 Thomas: But maybe it would be cool if we had some jury exchange program. Pick maybe another country. I don't know, but like, okay? You need a jury. We need a fury. Done. Done. Save.

0:47:29 Casey: What they, they argued at the Supreme Court and before the First Circuit about this juror questionnaire, though, um, they argued that they should have been allowed, allowed to ask this specific question, or this specific question should have been allowed on the juror questionnaire that they filled out, which was to list out every single piece of information that the prospective juror had heard about the case, which trial judge declined to do. Trial judge did ask a hundred other questions. It was a written questionnaire.

0:47:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:47:56 Casey: The jurors came in, and they filledout that questionnaire. It took, like, the whole day, and then they went home. Afterwards, they brought in thousands of jurors to fill out this questionnaire in writing and to go home, and then the parties got to review those documents, know, over, I think it was a period of like a month or more, it was it was certainly several weeks, um, and then they brought jurors back that they found were provisionally qualified based on their responses to that questionnaire with a hundred questions on it. And so what they were were objecting to, and to the Supreme Court, know, that that should have been allowed was just one question in addition to the hundred that were asked. And it was this really highly specific question about what exactly, like, list out everything you know about the case. And so I guess, to me, not surprisingly, the trial judge said, no, that's too unfocused, that is too unguided, that is not a good idea, right?

0:48:43 Thomas: God. I would hate a question like that, it's like, okay, where do I start? I don't, yeah.

0:48:49 Casey: I mean, it just kind of encourages people too, I think, to think about, like to think back on like, well, what exactly did I hear in a way that probably isn't helpful?

0:48:55 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:59 Matt: They're not supposed to be essay questions usually. And I will note though, So I was just looking at the data, because I wanted to mention this, that the defense actually surveyed people in the Boston area. And I'm very proud of this, actually, that only 36.7% of people in Boston favored the death penalty before the trial. That says something about the jury pool. And that's the Boston jury pool, the Eastern District is the entire Eastern half of Massachusetts. But only 23% of the prospective juror panel had formed an opinion that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be put to death. And only 16% held the view they could not be convinced otherwise. It's a pretty open-minded jury pool that

0:48:59 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:49:01 Casey: Yeah. I mean, a hundred questions.

0:49:33 Casey: Yeah.

0:49:33 Matt: You're working with here.

0:49:34 Casey: Yeah,

0:49:34 Thomas: Considering how many people might just want to get out of jury duty, I don't know, that's

0:49:37 Matt: Yeah, it'd be the easiest way.

0:49:39 Casey: I, I, I mean, and the truth is, is that this jury pool was probably a really good jury pool overall for him. And, and I've said this a lot. So, so to be clear, the, the motion pushing for a change of venue was not an issue at the Supreme Court, but, you know, it was an issue, and it was an issue before the First Circuit, I believe. But I've always thought that it must have been a tough decision for the defense team to push for a chance of venue in this case, because it is a good jury pool for them. You have a lot of people that do not support the death penalty under any circumstances. If I had to guess, and Matt might actually have have the data in front of him, I mean, I would venture a guess that it's probably the highest percentage, or close to the highest percentage, of people in the country that oppose the death penalty.

0:50:23 Matt: It is the most Catholic states for what that's worth, so it should go to something.

0:50:25 Casey: Yeah. And probably Next to that, my guess is it's Rhode Island. And so, I mean, if they wanted to move it, it seems to me like Rhode Island would not have been a bad place to ask for. But I also doubt that people there would be like less aware of the Boston Marathon bombing or are substantially less aware of it than, than an hour north, you Boston.

0:50:44 Thomas: Boston's an hour? No, oh my god, let me tell you the east coast is a mystery to me, I really don't get it. Yeah.

0:50:47 Casey: It's about 70, it'S about 70 miles. Like we were, yeah. Yeah, that I would have been a fine jury poll, but I'm not convinced that it would be like less aware the case. And there are just many, many jurisdictions, I think that would be so much worse for, for the defendant.

0:51:01 Thomas: So Let me, me get this straight, so that was something they raised and you're saying like that's, that's a hell of a decision to, to even raise it, but ultimately they didn't get anywhere on that? Okay.

0:51:14 Casey: No, ultimately they, they got, they Got nowhere on that.

0:51:16 Thomas: So it wasn't even part of the Supreme Court decision, right?

0:51:16 Casey: Um,

0:51:19 Matt: No, I just wanted to mention it.

0:51:19 Casey: Was not part of the Supreme court decision.

0:51:20 Matt: Yeah, it's just relevant to what we've been talking about.

0:51:20 Casey: Um yeah.

0:51:20 Thomas: Gotcha. Yeah. Sure, no, I was just getting right, is

0:51:23 Matt: Yeah. Sure.

0:51:24 Casey: And cause jury issues were, were important to the Supreme Court decision, you know, and, and ultimately the, the Supreme courts said that the, when it came to that juror question, um, the judge didn't abuse his discretion in it's an abusive discretion. Discretion.

0:51:34 Thomas: That the standard on that? Wow. I only ask because I know the the right wingers on the court sometimes just make up their own standard for stuff, so I just want to make sure you know, know.

0:51:42 Casey: No. Standard. And a good reason for that. You know, when it comes to jury selection, that's something that is really sort of inherently within the province of the judge, in a better position, I think, than appellate court down the line to make decisions like that because they actually have the potential jurors in front of them, you, and they're sitting in the jurisdiction, right, like in which the you trial is being held and presumably in which the crime took place

0:52:06 Matt: The only other issue in front of the Supreme Court was the Waltham murders and whether they should have been introduced or not. And it's pretty interesting to me at Oral Argument, they're kind of getting their hands around the idea that there's no real admissibility standard for these proceedings, which is very strange for federal court, obviously, to have in a criminal case really no admissibility beyond just, is it too confusing or is it going to kind of prejudice the jury too much? And I don't think they'd really looked at anything like this before. It seems like there's not a lot of precedent on this.

0:52:19 Thomas: Wow.

0:52:33 Matt: It's a very strange situation, the whole thing.

0:52:33 Thomas: That's really interesting. Yeah. Would make it hard to believe that they did something wrong, right? I mean, if there's almost no precedent, and is this the same thing where it's going to have to be like abuse of discretion? Yeah. It'd be hard to be, like, you violated this so much that you met this high standard of abuse of discussion. Also, we have no idea what it should have been. Be like, wow, it feels like you should have some discretion then, I guess. Yes, sure.

0:52:57 Matt: Still just say let it in, or at least let his friend testify about how Jokard told him that his brother did this, or maybe the FBI agent testify about the the interviewer from the other guy, like something. You don't have to have a whole mini trial, but get something in there.

0:53:05 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:53:08 Casey: It Just worries me though, because then at that point, I think the question is, is does the government then get to bring in evidence to rebut like that FBI agent has to say, and it just, I think, again, when, when, and you know, Justice Thomas makes this point, the only parties that know what happened are dead, I think it's pretty hard to put in reliable evidence concerning that. But it also, it does put the government in a tough position to try to rebut it.

0:53:38 Thomas: Right.

0:53:38 Casey: Like I said, I personally could see like if there, you know, if there was evidence that he knew of this and he believed it to be true. I mean, to me, that seems relevant. It doesn't seem too misleading. It seems to Me, like, it could be constrained, like, it, it could be limited to that issue, assuming that that evidence existed and that it could being from that witness. And something I think is worth pointing is the witness that the defense said would testify that Shohar had told him that Tamerlan was involved in this murder, these murders, he also indicted for obstruction of justice, and I think he served a federal prison term.

0:53:48 Thomas: Oh. Wow.

0:54:11 Casey: So I I don't believe that the information in question may have come from a proffer, think that that was information that he basically had had offered to the government during a proper session, like they, you know, that he'd said, this is something that I could, I could share with you. If, if you Gave me, if he gave me a deal, this is what I could give you. And again, I may be wrong about that, but when we listened to the oral argument, that was what it sounded like to me. So he had a couple of friends, I think Matt said three friends, that actually went to jail for obstruction of justice. And that was for, I believe it was for destroying or attempting to conceal evidence from Johar's dorm room that was related to the Marathon bombings. Yeah.

0:54:12 Thomas: What?

0:54:26 Thomas: I See. Gotcha.

0:54:52 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:52 Matt: Know what's in it for them. It's very strange.

0:54:54 Casey: You Know, I read, I actually read an interview with one of them, um, also, at least two of them, maybe three, were foreign, were students as well, and I read an overview of them, and I was like, oh my god, interview with him after he was released from from jail, and and it was sort of interesting, he, and I feel bad saying this, but I don't remember which Central Asian country he was from, if he, he was from Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan, but, um, was a paper from his home country that he'd given this interview to.

And he basically, expressed significant remorse for what he'd done and, and said that he just, he wasn't thinking, he was being stupid. He really regretted it. Um, that, you know, he hoped to basically become a better person and said that he felt his time in jail and, you Know, helped to help him to understand like what, you know what he'd gone wrong and that he wanted to, better himself from there. And he actually made an interesting comment about how he thought that the U.S. justice system was actually very fair to him, which I thought was was interesting.

0:55:22 Thomas: Wow. No.

0:55:42 Matt: Don't hear that very often.

0:55:43 Thomas: Actually.

0:55:44 Matt: So the Supreme Court reinstates the death penalty penalty in this case and sends it back to the First Circuit to clean some things up. The First Circuit grumbles about this, as they often do when they're returned by the Supreme Court, but they have to acknowledge that the death penalty has to be reinstated. Guilt or innocence is not on the table here. We're just talking about the penalty. They want to make that clear. But the First circuit released a decision just a few weeks ago that we wanted to talk about briefly at the end here. It mostly centers on juror bias. And I think it's a really interesting question. It's definitely going to come up in the Trump case, as there's no no doubt that if Trump is actually convicted in New York, that this is going to be an issue on appeal because

0:55:44 Casey: Now,

0:56:17 Thomas: Can you clarify just like timeline-wise, I, I was surprised that we already got to now, so just quickly, the years convicted, what was it, 2015, you said?

0:56:24 Matt: He's convicted in 2015. Yep. The appeal goes up.

0:56:26 Thomas: Takes obviously forever because everything takes forever. That

0:56:30 Matt: 2020, they vacate the death sentence, the First Circuit does. And then it goes to the Supreme Court in 2022.

0:56:36 Matt: In that term, they announce that they're restating the death sentence. And it comes back in front of the First circuit for some other issues that had had not been addressed by the Supreme Court, that the First Circuit wanted to take up again.

0:56:44 Thomas: Wow. Now. Oh. I was gonna say, okay, that was gonna be my question, because it felt like if this was just a question of, hey, the Supreme Court's like, nah, they had it right the first time, wouldn't it be a relatively quick thing of like, all right, back to what it was before? Huh.

0:56:59 Matt: Yeah, no, they really wanted to examine these other issues. And their position was that, look, the Supreme court got into these two issues, but they left some of these other issues out. We're just going to pick them up and make sure we get full decisions on them.

0:57:01 Thomas: Oh. Interesting.

0:57:08 Matt: And so They review the motion for change of venue, as we've discussed, then. And they look at these claims of bias with regards to two jurors, where it was brought to the judge's attention that these jurors had some issues, may not have been totally truthful about their social media use. So I want to talk very quickly about these two jurors. I know this is a particularly interesting issue, as I said, with the Trump trial starting today. So Juror 138 posted on Facebook, like you do, that he's waiting around in the jury pool. And a bunch of friends chimed in and talked about how awesome it was and said that Tsarnaev didn't have a chance in hell if he got on the jury.

0:57:09 Thomas: Wow.

0:57:34 Thomas: Holy Shit.

0:57:40 Matt: Yeah, didn't say anything about how he wants to put him to death, just kind of saying that he is definitely going to get convicted if you're on the juror. And so this juror is brought up, of course, to the judge, and the judge asks if he's been posting about social media about this. He says he hasn't. The defense doesn't find out until I think like 19 days later. They bring this to the judges' attention, and then the judge doesn't recall that juror to have him come up and answer questions about his social media use. And that is a problem, I think, in this case.

0:57:40 Thomas: Huh. Yeah. That's Fair. Geez.

0:58:05 Matt: Really want somebody who looks as fair and impartial as possible, and certainly somebody who hasn't misrepresented their social media used to the court in the course of this.

0:58:12 Casey: There is also the fact that, like, after, and this is not legally a problem, but, so trial, he actually goes back, like, after they return their verdict for the actual sentencing, and then goes on and posts about that on social media as well, and you know, expresses his satisfaction at the result, which I don't, don't get me wrong, that's legally not a problem, but it struck me as a little weird, that wasn't disregarding the the the court's, um, at that point, but it, it did strike me as a little weird that he, you know, he went back to court and then he went and he posted on social media about it and expressed how pleased he was that this kid was, was being sentenced to death and would never see the light of day again. And I'm paraphrasing, but it was something along those lines.

0:58:50 Thomas: Since it was after, then it doesn't matter. Yeah.

0:58:53 Matt: Right.

0:58:54 Casey: I mean, and that this, the first circuit actually notes this, you to me, I, it seems again, a little strange.

0:59:02 Thomas: Because I, because I can imagine, I mean, let's say you get a different, you know, let's, obviously this is like the least sympathetic defendant, you know, among The least sympathetic defendant as possible. But let's change it up a little bit. And then you imagine post-conviction, somebody goes on and they're like, hey, sure glad this, you group that I'm biased against person convicted. You know, like, couldn't you display, like, oh, shoot, this person was very biased in a way that was not cool, even though it's after the fact. Does that allow you to. OK, Interesting.

0:59:10 Casey: I

0:59:29 Matt: Yeah. You could do that. If it's

0:59:32 Thomas: Interesting. Or

0:59:32 Matt: Clear that he's racist or, you know, biased against certain kinds of people.

0:59:33 Thomas: Something Like That But But Just Saying like, oh, Glad it went the way it did. I mean, in Some ways that's not really revealing much, because obviously they voted that way in the, you know, but if it's Something that reveals maybe they had a a bias going into it, that would be more of a problem.

0:59:34 Matt: Right. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Very similar issues. Very similar to juror 266, who was more of a Twitter user, which I can relate to. And a 42 -year -old mom from Dorchester who had a lot to say about the Boston Marathon bombings. And it was all along the lines of what everybody was saying at the time. I mean, certainly it was just a lot of Boston Strong, all good supportive messages and supporting our EMTs and law enforcement that's all that prejudicial.

0:59:47 Thomas: Okay.

1:00:07 Casey: She did. She referred to him as a piece of garbage, I believe, when he was arrested.

1:00:12 Matt: That was a retweet, but not always endorsements. But we

1:00:14 Casey: Yeah. I mean, it's not, I'm not saying it's not.

1:00:16 Thomas: Do We get a legal decision on whether retrees equal endorsements. Oh,

1:00:18 Matt: Really

1:00:20 Casey: Yeah.

1:00:20 Matt: Need one. Yeah.

1:00:21 Casey: Yeah, I mean it's not as bad, I don't think, as the other person for sure. It says, yeah, congratulations to all the law enforcement professionals who worked so hard and went through hell to bring in that piece of garbage. And you're right, that was a retweet.

1:00:33 Matt: And I actually want to read from the First Circuit decision, because I thought this was pretty well said. The posts themselves are not particularly strong indicators of bias. Most of them were not Juror 266's own words, but rather retweets of what others had said. And it would be natural for Juror 266, like many others who lived in the location of such a horrific event as the marathon bombings, to feel scared while the situation was developing, to stay abreast of the activities and to share in a sense of community pride and resilience in the years following. The critical issue here is not the posts themselves, but instead the reason for their non-disclosure, so that is Yeah, that and it seems like maybe she was trying to get on the jury and they they're kind of, yeah, good

1:01:01 Thomas: The non-disclosure, sure, yeah, no, that makes sense, that is interesting thing though because I I've always thought the retweets don't equal endorsements thing was a little bit weak, unless you're clearly like satirizing something, like, okay, that's usually like centrist or slash intellectual dark web people who want to like retweet something shitty and then not take accountability for it, in my experience, but

1:01:13 Casey: Yeah

1:01:15 Matt: Right. Yeah. You want

1:01:24 Casey: Like how we all, like we all kind of thought like maybe, Remember back in the day when J.K. Rowling had like retweeted one thing, or liked something, and people are like, well, maybe like maybe it's not like that, she's, you know, she's like a super big Turf, maybe it should, she accidentally retweet that or didn't understand what it meant, and then, you know, and then years worth of of own thoughts emerged, but I remember that brief moment in time, I

1:01:24 Matt: Me to read it like that you retweeted it first.

1:01:29 Thomas: God, yeah,

1:01:40 Matt: Yeah.

1:01:42 Thomas: But that's definitely gonna have implications on Trump. I mean, I can imagine it's gonna be hard to find someone without some social media stuff about Trump, right?

1:01:46 Matt: Yeah, sure.

1:01:57 Matt: No, for sure.

1:01:57 Thomas: It'd be tricky.

1:01:58 Casey: Don't know, I don't, I don't think I have any stuff about him, to be honest, but I don't post much on social media, um, frankly, because it's stuff like this.

1:02:02 Thomas: Yeah, but you're off the jury for other reasons, okay?

1:02:05 Matt: Yes.

1:02:05 Casey: Yeah, it's

1:02:06 Matt: Actually, let's talk about Jura 355 because Jura355 could be any one of us, I think. Very interesting issue and something I've always kind of wondered about because I, you know, in the off chance that someone like us who does not support the death penalty is called in, but you want to get on a jury anyway. And I'm not saying I'm going to read too much into this person's answers. This person was a lawyer for 22 years, was a defense attorney for 22 years and had gone most recently to work for the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services, which does our public defense here. And this is someone who was very clear on his jury questionnaire that it is legal, but it should be the rarest of punishments. It's much too prevalent. And the judge kind of pushed him at sidebar to say, it seems like you might have some real reservations about the death penalty. Could you actually do this? And he was saying, well, in some rare cases, the judge said, said, what kind of rare cases? Well, Slobodan Milosevic, genocide. I would impose it for genocide. And the judge is like, okay.

1:02:06 Casey: True.

1:02:55 Thomas: Yeah.

1:02:57 Casey: Maybe. I'm not even sure he said he would. I think he said he would consider it.

1:02:58 Matt: So yeah, he said, maybe, right. Which I feel the same way, honestly. I mean, it's, you know, and I think this man, maybe I'm just putting too much of myself into this, but this is exactly how I could see myself approaching it because I would like to get on a jury like this.

1:03:10 Thomas: Oh, I would just lie. I don't care. I'd just be like, oh yeah, I love the death penalty. My favorite one. I'm such a fan.

1:03:12 Matt: Yeah.

1:03:15 Casey: Oh, I think, oh, I was just saying to Matt that I, before I was like, why didn't he just say he, that he doesn't believe in it? Because I personally, honestly, I would just be like, no, I don't believe it, period. Like, but yeah.

1:03:20 Thomas: I know. Well, if I wanted to get... Well, look, We've shouted about how – I don't know if it's everywhere or whatever, but often you can get jurors off – potential jurors out of the pool just for being anti-death penalty. And don't agree with that, that, um, so for me anyway, just my personal, uh, I don't know, political, moral views, I, I personally, I see it as entirely acceptable morally to lie to get on a jury, uh, if you are someone who's against the death penalty, because I think that's a totally legitimate position to have as, and be a part of the peer group, the jury of your peers, except not the ones who don't believe in certain punishments, seems a little weird to me, um, I'd, I'd be cool just saying, like, "Yeah, no, it's love it, it's great, great penalty."

1:03:26 Casey: Yeah. If

1:04:07 Matt: As lawyers, we can't endorse that, but I certainly understand what you're saying.

1:04:07 Thomas: No, Of course. Okay.

1:04:12 Matt: Yeah. But yeah, it

1:04:08 Casey: Yeah yeah. I definitely couldn't bring myself to do that. I think he was being honest though. Like he, he prefaced it by saying something like, you you know, I've really thought about this a lot and I've gone back and forth and I think he said he's done some soul searching. Yeah. I mean, so it definitely sounded like he was being very honest about his thought process.

1:04:25 Matt: Was very honest. Yeah, very straightforward. Just trying to say what he thought. And the district court ultimately found that based on what this man was saying, that Tsarnaev's case was outside of the zone of possibility that this person had established for when he would impose death. So he excluded him. And this first circuit found that was appropriate to exclude somebody under those circumstances. So I just thought that was interesting.

1:04:44 Casey: Say there are a couple other issues that were raised, but the Circuit said that they no merit, but in more words than that. Yeah, so like was sent back to the district court, to the trial court, um, investigate further when it comes to those two jurors, not the third one, but the two juror's, uh, had you not disclosed their social media posts and comments.

1:05:04 Matt: Not for a full penalty phase, to be clear, just a mini hearing, basically, to interrogate these jurors.

1:05:05 Casey: Yeah, they're going to, the judge has to make findings of fact when it come to, to those jurors. And I they, why not, I don't want to say they're not truthful, because as the court notes, it may well have been that they forgot making those comments. They didn't think that the applied to them or something. But my understanding is that the trial judge needs to make findings of fact about the reason for their lack of candor.

1:05:31 Thomas: And then from there there could be, hypothetically, that could he, could what order a new penalty, any range from, you know, saying, ah, this is all fine, to let's redo this again. Interesting.

1:05:42 Matt: Could get there if the bias is strong enough, but they're just trying to cover the bases here and make sure that these questions are asked that weren't asked at trial.

1:05:43 Thomas: And

1:05:42 Casey: Yeah. Yeah, there will be significantly more litigation, I think, over this. And one thing I want to note before the end is that this is exactly, when Martin Richard, the little boy that was killed, his parents wrote an open letter to the U.S. Attorney's Office asking that they not seek the death penalty, and that they agree to life without the possibility of parole, because they wanted to avoid years and years of litigation and appeals and having to relive this constantly, consistently, and

1:05:52 Matt: Certainly.

1:06:18 Thomas: Are you saying they did that just now, or like when? It, oh,

1:06:20 Casey: No, at the trial, at the, the time of trial, and

1:06:22 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Boy, sounds like they nailed that prediction, yeah.

1:06:26 Casey: Exactly, and that's, it is really unfortunate, because that is exactly what we're talking about, and what you just asked about, well, what will happen next? I mean, what will happen is protracted litigation, I would imagine, uh, and there will be another couple years of this, I imagine, motions being filed after the judge makes those findings of fact, and then appeals from there, and yeah, I mean, there'll be significantly more litigation before anything, before the sentence is carried out, if it ever is carried out, at

1:06:35 Thomas: Yeah.

1:06:51 Matt: Death penalty sometime soon, because we have a whole episode coming on that, especially as it relates to this case, but just kind of where things stand with it.

1:06:59 Thomas: As of now, it sounds like where we've left it is that, so that decision you're saying that just came out, that one, the last one we covered and

1:07:05 Matt: A few weeks ago, when

1:07:05 Casey: The end of March Yeah, yep.

1:07:07 Thomas: So what's, what's currently left to happen is that sort of finding a fact about why, why were these, these um, media posts maybe not disclosed, and then it'll go from there, I guess. Wow, yeah, I, I guessed that this was going to be like, all right, we're done with this, but no, as you say, there's always, it's always more rounds of stuff to happen, yeah.

1:07:28 Matt: You you sentence someone to death, it does tend to happen. Yeah. Much more so.

1:07:30 Thomas: Yeah.

1:07:30 Casey: There's Yeah. And that's You know, it's like I said on a previous episode, right, is that when you have life without parole, that the only people that really end up hearing from you usually are prosecutors, and you know, and maybe your defense attorney, and but you know, kind of these motions happen, but they, problem is, is when you have the death penalty, the stakes are much higher, and this, this will go on for years and years with motions like this, and very serious litigation because someone's life is at stake, and

1:07:44 Thomas: Yeah.

1:07:57 Thomas: Yet another reason why, personally, I don't support the death penalty anymore, and uh, it happened for a while, but uh, Yeah, no, that's really fascinating. Deep dive, noted, many implications for jury selection for this Trump trial. So that's what we're going to keep an eye on starting, I guess, probably as people are hearing this. Right. I mean, it's pretty much tomorrow as we're recording, reporting.

1:08:00 Casey: Yep.

1:08:18 Matt: And possibly for the next couple of months, who knows, but we'll be watching it. All

1:08:20 Thomas: Gosh. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for that deep dive. Casey, as always, thanks for joining us. Great to have even more experience in the deep dives here. And thanks so much for listening, everybody. If you'd like to support the show, go to patreon.com/law, and we'll see you very soon. I'm sure we'll be talking about the events of this week on

1:08:40 Matt: Right. Happy Marathon Monday.

1:08:41 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.