By John Remington Graham
October 27,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- I have been asked many times why I have
intervened in the federal prosecution of Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev, the young man who was convicted and
sentenced to death in the Boston Marathon bombing
case where two brothers, on April 15, 2013,
allegedly detonated pressure cooker bombs on
Boylston Street in front of the Forum Restaurant
that killed or maimed many people.
As I wrap up my career of fifty years as a member
of the bar, including service as a public defender
in state and federal courts, co-founder of an
accredited law school, and chief public prosecutor
in Minnesota state courts, I am apprehensive that my
country might be entering into an era of judicial
murder.
Judicial murder is the practice of designing a
trial to get a guilty verdict, regardless of the
facts, and a death sentence carried out. It has
happened in many countries in all ages. It has been
recognized as a threat of public justice by the
United States Supreme Court in Powell v. Alabama,
287 U. S. 45 at 72-72 (1932). Judicial murder is
followed by corruption and destruction of
society.The judicial murder of Socrates was followed
by loss of the classical civilization of ancient
Greece. The judicial murder of Jesus of Nazareth,
whether son of God or venerable philosopher, was
followed by the destruction of Jerusalem and the
second temple. The judicial murder of Joan of Arc
was followed by loss of most English lands in
France. The judicial murder of Charles the First was
followed by loss of the free constitution of
England. The judicial murder of Louis XVI was
followed by 150 years of defeat, ruin, suffering,
and chaos in France. Judicial murder in the Third
Reich was followed by humiliating defeat of Germany.
Judicial murder in the Soviet Union was followed by
collapse of the Soviet empire. If the justice
system cannot be trusted, evil consequences follow.
My active intervention in the case began when I
assisted the Russian aunt, herself a lawyer, of
Dzhokhar file pro se papers in the federal district
court in Boston, asking that she be recognized as a
friend of the court so she could present evidence
conclusively showing, by FBI-gathered evidence,
incorporated by reference into the indictment, that
Dzhokhar could not have detonated the bomb he was
supposed to have detonated. I proceeded in this way
as instructed by the bar liaison officer of the
federal district court and the clerk’s office. Dr.
Paul Craig Roberts
wrote up this
legal adventure in his column of August
17, 2015, in a way which draws from the judicial
record, and portrays the scenario clearly enough.
The link is . Those unfamiliar with this case need
to read that article.
The claim of the Russian aunt sounds fantastic
only so long as one believes newspapers and does not
pay attention to critical, undeniable facts gathered
by the FBI, and the language of the indictment as
returned on June 27, 2013, especially paragraphs 6,
7, and 24. A number of things have caused me to
doubt Dzhokhar’s guilt.
The FBI crime lab determined from fragments at
the scene of the explosions by no later than April
16, 2013, that the culprits were carrying
heavy-laden black backpacks on Boyleston Street just
before the explosions. This was not an evaporating
investigation theory, but was incorporated into the
indictment, was part of the government’s
case-in-chief, and was never disavowed by anyone
involved in the trial. On April 18, 2013, the FBI
determined that the culprits were portrayed in a
street video maintained by the Whiskey Steak House
on Boyleston Street. Two still frames were used to
identify the brothers Tamerlan, who was shot dead by
police, and Dzhokhar, who survived, and was charged,
convicted, and sentenced to death. A third
still-frame from the same street video shows
Dzhokhar, carrying not a heavy-laden black
backpack, but a light-weight white backpack
over his right shoulder. The very evidence used by
the FBI, and described in the indictment to identify
Dzhokhar eliminates him as certainly as white is
distinguished from black. The FBI evidence of an
exploded backpack is black and the FBI’s
identification of Dzhokhar at the scene of the crime
shows him with a white backpack. This
exculpatory evidence was kept out of the trial.
What of the confessions attributed to Dzhokhar?
The law has always known that, contrary to popular
belief, confessions are highly unreliable, often
contrived or staged by artifice, or otherwise false,
which is why the law has long used safeguards to
assure that alleged confessions are received only
cautiously under proper circumstances. The alleged
confession by Dzhokhar written in the dark on the
side of a boat under which the boy injured from
gunshot woulds was hiding is highly suspect.
Moreover, if Dzhokhar was willing to confess, why
was he hiding? The confession at sentencing was
plainly enough scripted for him, and is not
corroborated by what the law calls the “corpus
delicti.”
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But more troubling evidence exists. Dr. Lorraine
Day was the chief of orthopedic surgery at San
Francisco General Hospital for some twenty-five
years. She treated many grave injuries, and is an
impeccable medical expert. She
prepared a decisive report, dated May 4,
2015, on the Boston bombing case, which she
concluded was a hoax. She observed, for example,
that photos of the scene after the explosions
revealed no blood when it should have been visible
everywhere, and that, when blood did appear, it was
of a bright orange red Hollywood color, not maroon
as real blood appears in real life. The Boston
marathon case appears to be at least contaminated by
crisis actors if not entirely a false flag event.
The video of the man showing no trauma whose leg is
purported to be blown away being wheeled down the
street sitting upright in a wheelchair is a dead
giveaway as to the presence of crisis actors. Any
such casualty mishandled in such a way would have
quickly bled to death.
The trial of Dzhokhar raises more serious
questions. Mr. Tsarnaev was defended by
court-appointed lawyers who did not do their job.
His chief counsel had powerful exculpatory evidence
available, yet she forcefully asserted that he was
guilty in her opening statement, never used the
exculpatory evidence at trial, and did not even ask
for a verdict of not guilty in her final argument to
the jury. Dzhokhar had no defense. As a lawyer with
a half century of experience, it was painful for me
to watch what looked like a show trial in which the
verdict and sentence were assured in advance.
On verge of retirement, I have no interest in
acquiring notoriety to build a practice. I have
nothing to gain from coming to the defense of a
person abandoned by law, the media, and everyone but
his aunt. But my country has everything to lose from
judicial murder in behalf of some government agenda.
We must examine if that is the case and, if so,
prevent it.
As a last hurrah as a lawyer, I recently filed a
motion in behalf of three American citizens before
the First Circuit in the appeal of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,
asking that they be recognized as friends of the
court, so they can show that, on the basis of facts
actually of record before the federal district court
in Boston, Dzhokhar did not detonate a
pressure-cooker bomb on Boylston Street on April 15,
2013, as charged in the indictment. The government
and major media of the United States have created
such confusion and libelled the accused so foully
that it is impossible for the average citizen
relying on newspapers to imagine that Dzhokhar is
innocent. Major media waged a lock-step propaganda
campaign against Mr. Tsarnaev.
However, perhaps a turning point occurred on
Monday of this week. Newsweek on October 23, 2017,
reported, two years and two months after Dr.
Roberts’ report
my filing in
behalf of Dzhokhar’s aunt, Maret
Tsarnaeva, that evidence might exist of Dzhokhar’s
innocence. If other of the American media
would join Newsweek in informing the public that
there is doubt about the conviction, perhaps not
only a possible case of wrongful conviction can be
corrected, but also a case of possible judicial
murder could be prevented.
– John Remington Graham of the Minnesota Bar
(#3664X),
jrgraham@novicomfusion.com .