No cameras are allowed at the Tsarnaev trial. But CNN’s Ann O’Neill will be there every day. Think of her as The 13th Juror, bringing insights here weekly. And follow @AnnoCNN on Twitter daily.
The walk to the courthouse, along streets where snow is piled higher than one’s head, inspires a sense of kinship with rats searching for the cheese at the end of a maze. The blind quest becomes your everything.
U.S. District Court Judge George A. O’Toole wants the cheese.
Tsarnaev’s defense, as well as the opinion makers at the local paper of record, The Boston Globe, believe there’s no way O’Toole will be able find an unbiased jury to hear the case. People here have their minds made up about Tsarnaev’s guilt, they take the marathon bombing personally, the publicity has been overwhelming, and nobody here can agree on the death penalty — or so the arguments go.
But other factors are at play, too, including the length and likely gruesome nature of this trial, says Valerie Hans, a professor at Cornell University Law School and one of the nation’s leading experts on juries.
The bombings and manhunt, she said, also seemed to touch nearly every one of the 5 million people who live in or near Boston — or a classmate, a relative, a colleague, a friend or a friend of a friend.
O’Toole is determined to prove the naysayers wrong. He seems confident he will find 12 objective Bostonians able to judge Tsarnaev only by what they hear in court. The defense has asked him three times to move the trial from Boston, saying the bias against their client is so pervasive it’s impossible to find an impartial jury in Boston.
So many of the jury prospects say the same thing: Yes, I think he’s guilty. No, I’m not sure I can vote for death penalty.
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We met Juror 353 on the 12th day, a Friday. I doubt he’ll make the panel, which seems perfectly fine with him.
He cut to the chase as he sat in his gray sweater at a conference table in the middle of the courtroom, surrounded by a dozen lawyers, court staffers and the judge. From the media peanut gallery, all we could see on the closed-circuit feed was the bald spot on the back of his head.
He spoke in an animated, gravelly voice. And he was Boston, through and through:
“I’m just absolutely against the death penalty. I don’t know how many thousands of rounds were shot at that boat,” he said, referring to Tsarnaev’s April 19, 2013, capture in a boat parked in a backyard in Watertown.
“You couldn’t kill him then. I’m not gonna kill him now.”
With that, 353’s questioning came to an abrupt halt. He was out the door, and within minutes, someone tweeted, “Je Suis Juror 353.”
No cameras are allowed at the Tsarnaev trial. But CNN’s Ann O’Neill will be there every day. Think of her as The 13th Juror, bringing insights here weekly. And follow @AnnoCNN on Twitter daily.
