The threadbare but surprisingly resilient trial tactic of seeing what will stick when thrown against the wall made a starring appearance in the defense of Boston Marathon terrorist killer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Tsarnaev was 19 when he planted a pressure-cooker nail bomb at the feet of an eight year-old boy and his family. Tsarnaev is now 21; the boy is no longer with us..
Yesterday, Tsarnaev called to the stand his third grade teacher. That is not a typo. Third grade. She gave the following testimony according to this CBS News story:
As a young child, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was quiet, hardworking and "always wanted to do the right thing," his third-grade teacher testified....
"He was just learning English at that time," Charner-Laird said, referring to Tsarnaev's recent move to the U.S. from Russia with his family....
Tsarnaev was 9 in the fall of 2002 when he was one of her students in a combination class for third- and fourth-graders at the Cambridgeport School, she said.
"He was incredibly hardworking," she said. "He cared a lot about his studies; he tried very hard."
I'm not entirely clear on why it helps the defense to establish that, when he was a little boy of about the same age of the one he shredded, he was smart, hard-working and determined. Intelligence, diligence and determination are not characteristics that strike me as exculpatory -- not when the uncontested prosecution evidence showed weeks of planning the crime.
But for however that may be, how much can any of this count when it relates only to how Tsarnaev was as a third grader?
It might be that the defense simply wants to show that, at one point, he was a third grader, and that there still may be a child left in there somewhere. But my sense of it is that any benefit potentially to be gleaned from that is outweighed by what certainly smacks of desperation: If the defense to a blood-spattered multiple murder features calling the killer's third grade teacher, won't the jury be wondering, "Is this the best they can do?"
This is an especially worrisome prospect for the defense in light of evidence that, more recently, Tsarnaev's once-wholesome attitude had, ummmmm, changed.
Standard operating procedure in capital case defense. Anything that could possibly humanize the murderer (or at least portray him as something other than a monster) in the eyes of even one juror will be introduced. You work with what you have.
I testified in a Federal DP trial (sentencing phase) back in 2008 for James McTier. In addition to me, they had McTier's little league coach testify. It worked as he got LWOP.
Standard operating procedure in capital case defense. Anything that could possibly humanize the murderer (or at least portray him as something other than a monster) in the eyes of even one juror will be introduced. You work with what you have.
It is desperation but it works.
I testified in a Federal DP trial (sentencing phase) back in 2008 for James McTier. In addition to me, they had McTier's little league coach testify. It worked as he got LWOP.
I felt dirty having to assist keeping him alive.