A federal judge has ordered to "expeditiously" release to the public the hundreds of documents and exhibits to the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is sentenced to death for the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. ordered the US District Court clerk's office Tuesday to unseal the documents.
CBS Boston reported that there are no official announcements as to when the court clerk's office will start making the documents public. Prosecutors and Tsarnaev's lawyers just agreed to have more than 600 filings and exhibits go public. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death last year for his part in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, where three people were killed and some 260 more were injured.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan, who was killed after clashing with the authorities, placed two bombs at the finish line of the marathon.
The Boston Globe wrote that US District Judge O'Toole Jr. allowed lawyers and prosecutors to file the sensitive documents while Tsarnaev's death-penalty trial takes place. The documents that will be released to the public are FBI recordings of the suspects interviews and confessions, concerns during the jury selection process, search warrants, and the testimony of Sister Helen Prejean.
There will also be DNA reports and reports of expert witnesses that will be released to the public.
Meanwhile, Boston Herald earlier this month reported that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was ordered by O'Toole, Jr. to pay $100,125,027 to 49 victims, as well as the Massachusetts Victim Compensation Fund. The payments should be given immediately, and any amount less than what was asked will be divided among the victims proportionately.
Federal prosecutors demanded that Tsarnaev will pay $80 million, but the judge ruled another amount. The minimum yearly payment will be $100, which will taken from Tsarnaev's canteen fund. O'Toole rejected Tsarnaev's appeal for a new trial, saying his arguments for requesting a new trial were not really new, which means no further discussions are needed.
