Keller @ Large: Utter Desperation From Hernandez, Tsarnaev
BOSTON (CBS) - It isn't easy being a criminal defense attorney, you might reasonably allege, when you've got clients like accused mass murderers Aaron Hernandez and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Hernandez and his defense team had a tough day last week in court when a judge ruled that Hernandez's cell phone – said by prosecutors to be chock full of incriminating evidence – is admissible.
Judge Susan Garsh didn't buy the claim that a member of Hernandez's defense team had been duped by the cops into turning over the phone. Instead, wrote the judge, it was "a voluntary act…not the result of force, threat, trickery, duress, or coercion."
Coincidentally, that sounds a lot like the apparent defense being offered up by the beleaguered attorneys for accused Marathon bomber Tsarnaev, who may have limited his legal options by allegedly scrawling a confession inside the boat he crawled into to hide from police.
Tsarnaev's lawyers now say they hope to base their case in part on testimony that Dzhokhar knew about his older brother's Tamerlan's alleged involvement in a drug-related triple murder in Waltham three years ago.
They claim that will help support their story that Tamerlan was "dominant" over Dzhokhar and would "place the brothers' respective personal characteristics and relative culpability into stark relief."
Actually, while of course acknowledging that all suspects are presumed innocent until guilt is proven, one might allege that this new evidence only affirms the perception of both Tsarnaev brothers as ruthless thugs up to their necks in violent crime.
And one might claim that when one sees lawyers launching spurious claims of unfair process, peddling highly-dubious spin, and frantically trying to move a trial venue away from the jurors who know the case best, it's a sign of utter desperation.
Allegedly, of course.
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