Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial will stay in the city, a U.S. appeals court ruled Friday, thwarting a fourth attempt by the suspect’s lawyers to find another venue given concerns over a jury’s impartiality.
In a split decision, the three-judge panel ruled they were “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,” according to Reuters.
{mosads}Chief Judge Sandra L. Lynch and Circuit Judge Jeffrey R. Howard believed that Tsarnaev had “not met the well-established standards” for the court to step in and grant moving the trial out of Boston, according to The Boston Globe.
The judges cited other high-profile cases such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to argue that cases can be tried near the location of a high-profile crime, according to the Globe.
Tsarnaev could face the death penalty for the 2013 bombing, which killed three spectators and left another 264 injured. Authorities captured Tsarnaev after a massive manhunt that left an MIT officer dead. His brother, Tamerlan, who was also a suspect in the bombing, died after a shootout with police.
Next week, defense attorneys and prosecutors will narrow the jury field further, Reuters reported, from around 70 potential jurors to a dozen, with six alternates.