Tsarnaev lawyers seek to unseal jury questionnaires

Legal team to argue convicted terrorist doomed from start

The persuasions, prejudices and private lives of 1,355 Bay State residents rejected from sitting in judgment of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 2015 could soon be public when his appellate team argues the young terrorist’s jury pool was so poisoned it doomed him to be sentenced to death.

Tsarnaev defender David Patton on Monday filed a motion with U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole Jr. asking that completed screening questionnaires of every woman and man not seated as one of 12 jurors or six alternates be partially unsealed after more than three years under lock and key. Patton, whose direct appeal brief on Tsarnaev’s behalf is due next month, is agreeing up front to redact the prospective jurors’ names, occupations and addresses, as well as relatives’ names and any medical issues that may have impacted their ability to serve.

The questionnaires filled out by the 10 women and eight men who were seated as jurors and alternates for the blockbuster trial would be unsealed as well, “with some redactions,” per agreement with federal prosecutors, Patton’s motion states.

“Among other issues, counsel intend to appeal this Court’s denial of Mr. Tsarnaev’s motions to change venue,” Patton wrote. “In presenting this issue, applicable precedent dictates that Mr. Tsarnaev determine the percentage of all venirepersons who knew about the case, and the percentage who believed, based on pretrial publicity, that Mr. Tsarnaev was guilty or should receive the death penalty.”

Patton hinted Tsarnaev’s opening brief will cite the non-seated prospective jurors’ responses “in presenting separate issues related to the overall jury selection process.”

Impanelment of Tsarnaev’s jury stretched over two months in O’Toole’s heavily guarded courtroom and was fraught with challenges from the start. One man up for consideration unabashedly told O’Toole, “If you execute the right guy, I don’t have a problem with it whatsoever.”

Most prospects never got called back for interviews with O’Toole and the trial teams based on their questionnaire answers.

Tsarnaev, 24, was convicted of the April 15, 2013, bombings at the marathon finish line in Copley Square that killed spectators Martin Richard, 8, Boston University graduate student Lingzi Lu, 23, and restaurant manager Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, and injured or permanently disfigured nearly 300 others. He was also found guilty of murdering MIT police officer Sean Collier, 27, three days later as he and his late brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev tried to flee.