US appeals court says Boston bomber trial can stay in city
A US appeals court on Friday ruled the trial for the accused Boston Marathon bomber can go ahead in the city, over attempts from his attorneys to change the venue on the basis an impartial jury could not be seated so close to the site of the 2013 attack.
The split three-judge panel of the US First Circuit Court of Appeals backed District Judge George O'Toole, who has three times rejected pleas by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers to move the trial out of Boston, where the bombing killed three people and injured 264.
"We are unable to conclude that it is clear and indisputable that the petitioner cannot receive a fair trial by an impartial jury in the Eastern Division of Massachusetts," the judges wrote in the 80-page opinion.
Thousands of Boston-area residents were crowded around the race's finish line when twin bombs went off on April 15, 2013. Four days later, hundreds of thousands were ordered to remain in their homes while police conducted a massive manhunt for Tsarnaev.
