Boston Bombing Judge Denies Suspect’s Bid to Move March Trial

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has lost a final bid to move his trial to another city. It happened just a week before a jury will start hearing the terrorism case.

This is not the first denial for him, as the 21-year-old former college student has lost repeated requests to move the trial to New York or Washington.

Tsarnaev was accused of building two homemade pressure cooker bombs with his older brother, Tamerlan.

The death penalty trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has faced a delay due to painstaking jury selection, crippling snowstorms and last-ditch appeals to move the case someplace else.

Judge George O'Toole, along with the prosecution and defense teams, after questioning 256 people for more than 21 days, finally settled on a pool of 70 jury prospects, earlier this month.

The defense tried to convince O'Toole three times to move the trial, by saying that it was unable to find any unbiased jury in Boston. But, the appeals court ruled Friday and refused the bid.

Next week, the attorneys will weed out jurors, whom they believe are less sympathetic to their case. After that, the panel consisting of 12 jurors and six alternates will sit formally to hear opening statements and the first witnesses to an event that cut Boston to its core.

Most probably the trial will be underway during the running of this year's Boston Marathon on April 20. O'Toole has indicated that the trial could come to an end into June.

In Tsarnaev’s case, the jurors will first of all decide whether he was guilty of using weapons of mass destruction to kill people at a large public event. If he is found guilty, then the jury will decide the punishment for him.