Wednesday, April 22, 2015

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After Jury Sees Gesture by Boston Marathon Bomber, Defense Tries to Blunt Its ... - New York Times

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Tsarnaev Seen Making Obscene Gesture

Tsarnaev Seen Making Obscene Gesture

In surveillance video captured from his holding cell, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man at the center of the Boston Marathon bombing trial, is seen making a hand gesture to the camera.

By U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts on April 22, 2015. Photo by via U.S. Attorney's Office.

BOSTON — The defense team for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday tried to blunt the shock value of an incendiary photo that the prosecution showed the jury of him thrusting his middle finger at a security camera three months after the bombing.

The prosecution on Tuesday had said that the defiant gesture showed Mr. Tsarnaev was “unconcerned, unrepentant and unchanged” after being charged with killing three people and wounding 264 others at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

But on Wednesday, the defense showed the jury a fuller portion of the surveillance video, recorded in July 2013, from which the single frame of the obscene gesture had been taken.

Miriam Conrad, a defense lawyer, said as she cross-examined a government witness that the surveillance camera had a shiny reflective cover, like a mirror.

The video showed that shortly after he entered a holding cell, Mr. Tsarnaev looked at the camera and began primping his long, floppy hair. He stood on a bench and looked more closely into the camera, again as if into a mirror, and continued to fluff up his hair.

Then in very quick movements, he flashed a backward, two-fingered sign that Ms. Conrad called a “V sign,” and then the middle finger. The judge did not allow Ms. Conrad to characterize the fleeting gestures. But she clearly hoped the larger context would cast some doubt on the prosecution’s contention the day before that Mr. Tsarnaev had “one more message to send.”

The video was shown during the second day of the penalty phase of the trial, in which the jury, which has already found Mr. Tsarnaev guilty, is now weighing whether to sentence him to death or to life in prison.

In making its case that Mr. Tsarnaev should be put to death, the government on Wednesday continued with a procession of witnesses who had either been wounded or had lost loved ones in the bombings.

They included Adrianne Haslet-Davis, 34, a ballroom dancer who was with her husband, Adam, at the marathon and who lost her left leg below the knee. She said her husband kept apologizing to her, though he was severely wounded himself. He was not in court. “He has bravely admitted himself into a mental facility at the V.A. hospital,” she told the jury between sobs.

And Jinyan Zhao, a surrogate aunt to Lingzi Lu, 23, who was killed, testified on behalf of Ms. Lu’s parents, who are in China, where they remain devastated by the loss of their only child. Although Ms. Lu had lived in Boston for only seven months when she was killed, her parents buried her here because she had become part of Boston history.

Ms. Zhao said that the parents seemed to have an image in their minds of their daughter as a young bride, and they buried her in a pink bridal gown and tiara. As her father prepared two years ago to deliver his daughter’s eulogy, Ms. Zhao said, “He told me, ‘I have this feeling I’m going to give a toast in my daughter’s wedding.’”

The prosecution is expected to wrap up its case this week, with the defense planning to begin its case on Monday.




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