i think that is an enormously important piece of evidence in this case because, remember the chronology. by that point, tamerlan tsarnaev is dead. he s been run over by a car, the confrontation in watertown, it s over and dzhokhar tsarnaev is on his own. he could have surrendered. he could have expressed some sort of fear remorse. instead, he finds this boat to hide in and while he s there, on his own, he writes about how he was avenging the deaths of muslims. he expresses pride in what they did. so, you know the core argument the defense made and i don t blame them for making this argument. i think it s the only argument they had, was that dzhokhar tsarnaev was manipulated by his evil older brother, but the writing in the boat is such an
out. i think that s where the defense thought they had an edge. here s how important the penalty phase was to the defense in this case. they produced 63 witnesses in 13 days and judy clarke has really made a reputation for keeping people off death row and i think in the closing argument she went out on a limb because she said go ahead and check off, did he intentionally commit the crimes. go on and check off he premeditated the crime, but he does not deserve the death penalty. this is not the worst of the worst, and the jury obviously did not go along with that. jeff toobin one of the things i think jean cited in the testimony, one of the very moving moments, important moments, came when it was described, the message, that dzhokhar tsarnaev had written while he was hiding in that boat in which he expressed very clearly no remorse for what he did.
interview to two reporters from the buffalo news who wrote an extensive study about what he had to say about what took place, aened enedand beyond that jake a lot of parallels between the two. both timothy mcveigh and tsarnaev showing absolutely no signs of remorse. that obviously can play on a jury s mind. both of them did not take the stand. both of them had a big beef against the government. mcveigh going back to ruby ridge and what happened at waco. tsarnaev making his feelings known, certainly at the very least by his writings on the side of that boat and as i think deborah, or jeffrey, pointed out, dropping that knapsack with the pressure cooker bomb, choosing to drop that behind martin richard, before that bomb was set off. so a lot of parallels between these two cases, and both juries finding for the death penalty. if you re just joining us we re discussing the fact that a
marathon and interesting, because when asked whether they felt he was remorseful only two of the jurors said yes. they felt there was some remorse there. now, i want to talk about his demeanor in court because the judge was clear with the jury telling the jury, look, do not take his failure to testify, do not take his demeanor you know as any sort of evidence and, in fact at the end of the trial, once the jury was out, they thanked dzhokhar tsarnaev. the judge thanked dzhokhar tsarnaev for the propriety he showed in the courtroom. the respect that he showed in that courtroom. the judge was very aware. i ve been speaking to a number of people about this judge and they all think he s a fair man, really held a tight ship that he did what he was supposed to do but during the whole course you always see the defense taking different notes as to whether they re going to appeal or not, and it was interesting to see david brooke also say he wanted
why it would not be right to give him the death penalty. but none of them are mandatory. in other words, all 12 could agree that he showed remorse, and they could still give him the death penalty. so what it really is is the court giving them a clear outline of what the defense contention is as to why he should not be given the death penalty and allowing them to check off various factors, which then would become part of a larger discussion in the jury room about whether this case is an appropriate case for the death penalty, and obviously, when that discussion was over even those jurors who thought that he demonstrated some remorse concluded in the end he deserved the death penalty. and, jean casarez, in past cases like this those mitigating factors have resulted in a jury deciding that the individual should not be put to death? exactly right, because it s a balancing test. once they get the aggravating factors and the mitigating factors they have to balance it