I can't imagine being on that jury. You know they'll be sequestered, and the trial will take months.... I think I'd prefer the jury stick to deciding guilt or innocence. The sentencing should be a separate process.....Boston bombing trial, opening Monday, could last months
BOSTON — The Boston Marathon bombing trial gets underway Monday as potential jurors begin arriving at federal court, where a panel of 12 will ultimately decide whether 21-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is executed.
More than 1,000 residents of eastern Massachusetts, a region still scarred by the deadly attacks of April 2013, will fill out jury selection questionnaires. A litany of queries boils down to two essentials: Can you be fair? Can you impose the death penalty if conditions are met?
Seating a qualified jury will be difficult, court watchers say, and could take weeks. It's as important as anything that might happen in the courtroom after jurors take their seats.
"This jury selection process is going to be like very few others in a federal criminal case," said Jeremy Sternberg, a former federal prosecutor who is a partner at Holland & Knight in Boston. "It's going to take a very long time. ... Its importance cannot be overstated."
The scale of the attack was so vast that every potential juror could already know the case on a personal level. It was the largest act of terrorism in Boston's history, and its effects rippled across the region. The bombings left three people dead, injured more than 260 and led to at least 16 people having limbs amputated. The ensuing five-day manhunt climaxed with a daylong, citywide shutdown before Tsarnaev was captured hiding in a backyard boat.
The trial will unfold in two phases — a guilt phase followed by a penalty phase if necessary — and could take months to complete. Having the same jury sit for both phases raises the stakes of jury selection all the more.
"I have real concerns that no matter who sits on that jury, they have been impacted in some way by the events of the Marathon bombings," said Michael Coyne, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law in Andover, Mass. "We hope that, at least in the second phase, we get someone to look at the factors objectively."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /21052311/
Are they all going to agree on the death penalty and not be traumatized, since it was banned in Boston, but this is federal case now.
