Lawyers requesting new trial for Tsarnaev

Lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a Chechen, argued that because of widespread outrage in Boston after the deadly 2013 attack, jurors in the city couldn’t be objective about him.

But it is the entry on social media – from Twitter, Facebook, Skype – that is the focus of the appeal for a new trial. Even on social media, jurors were inundated with posts from relatives and friends, they said.

They say his trial should never have been held in Boston because jurors held a biased opinion from the start. His lawyers would like for his guilty verdict to be overturned and for the court provide a new trial to determine his sentencing. Three people died, and more than 260 were injured.

They report the reward, offered by a group of police and fire unions, will not be collected because no one identified the Tsarnaev brothers as the ones responsible for the attack. The court ruled that part of the federal definition was unconstitutionally vague and struck it down.

Tsarnaev’s lawyers also claimed that the death penalty is unconstitutional, citing a recent dissent by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Therefore, Tsarnaev should be acquitted for all of those charges, his attorneys wrote.

A different venue is needed “due to continuous and unrelenting publicity” in Boston, where Tsarnaev was found guilty on 30 counts, including 17 that carry a death sentence, according to a motion filed at the Moakley United States Courthouse on Monday.