BOSTON – Prominent death penalty lawyer Judy Clarke is joining the team representing the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.
The appointment of Clarke, based in San Diego, Calif., was approved Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler.
Bowler denied a request from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s public defender to appoint a second death penalty lawyer. Bowler says Tsarnaev’s lawyers could renew their motion to appoint another death penalty expert if Tsarnaev is indicted.
The 19-year-old Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction during the April 15 marathon. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured when two bombs exploded near the finish line.
Clarke’s clients have included Unabomber Ted Kaczynski; Susan Smith, who drowned her two children; and most recently Tucson, Ariz., shooter Jared Loughner. All received life sentences instead of the death penalty.
Is she working for her client or the prosecutor?
Wouldn’t trust her any further than I could pee. The only guy I would trust is Jerry Spence. He took the feds to the cleaners over Ruby Ridge.
Now they are sayin` that they have found DNA on the pressure cookers. Funny how they can find DNA on things like that but they never find that on a low profile case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/reclusive-lawyer-who-defended-unabomber-tucson-shooter-opens-up-about-death-penalty-cases/2013/04/26/ec11e1d8-aed2-11e2-b59e-adb43da03a8a_story.html
There are many who are facing the death penalty. Yet she seems to get mostly the ‘celebrity’ cases. No ordinary murder cases for her!
“… When she first meets them, they do not want to plead guilty. Her job is to change their resolve, she said.”
So the job of a defense attorney is to get her clients to plead guilty? With a ‘defense’ lawyer like this, who needs a prosecutor?
“They’re looking into the lens of life in prison in a box,” she said. “Our job is to provide them with a reason to live.”
No, her job is defend her client’s interests in a diligent manner, not pretend to be their priest.
“….In most cases, she said she finds underlying mental illness.”
So how come she never attempts the insanity defense?
Remember this woman never asked the investigators why they had more bullet holes at the Tucson crime scene than Loughner had bullets in his gun. I think her real job is to not challenge the official narrative with a messy trial, and to make the defendant go away with as little fuss as possible. The actual guilt or innocence of her clients is of no interest to her.
The best dump truck money can buy.
That’s what we used to call Public Defenders back in the day.