Editorial: Legal tactics fail for Tsarnaev as they did for 'Whitey' Bulger

Boston Herald, Boston Herald on Sep 30, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Whitey Bulger can compare notes in Hell.

Both used a legal tactic to delay justice and lost by trying to blame the judges in their murder cases for having a bias.

The right to due process is enshrined in both the federal and Massachusetts Constitutions, so any accusation otherwise stings.

Judges are human and, like the rest of us, listen to heinous accusations and do their best to leave emotions outside the court and oversee a trial with professionalism. We’ll leave those who fail in this cherished endeavor for another day.

But the trials of Tsarnaev and Bulger will go down in Boston history and, sadly, are still being regurgitated today.

Deep in his losing appeal, Tsarnaev accused the federal judge in his case of having a bias because he spoke about the difficulties of running a high-profile trial in our Social Media Age. Yet, the federal Appeals Court in Boston ruled U.S. District Court Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. did not betray his oath.

Tsarnaev is on death row in a Colorado Supermax awaiting O’Toole’s decision on whether two jurors in the death penalty phase of the Boston Marathon bomber’s sentencing failed to properly report their social media posts.

At the very least, a new death penalty trial will be held — but the bomber will never go free.

Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 of all 30 charges against him, including the murder of Martin Richard, 8; Krystle Campbell, 29; and Lu Lingzi, 23. More than 260 people were also injured and maimed. MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, 27, was shot execution-style days later by Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan, who was killed hours later in a firefight in Watertown.

Boston Police Officer Dennis Simmonds, 28, injured in the Watertown shootout, died in April 2014.

The cowardly brothers changed the city’s history forever when they planted two bombs at the finish line of the marathon on April 15, 2013.

Tsarnaev’s legal team — paid for by taxpayers — attempted a “writ of mandamus” to shelve O’Toole. They lost.

So did Bulger, who claimed federal Judge Richard G. Stearns once served as a U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts while Bulger was an informant for the FBI. Stearns argued he was separate from the New England Organized Crime Strike Force (OCSF) that handled Bulger. Whitey lost.

Two heartless killers using every inch of the law to escape justice is a cruel irony. It’s deep in the legal briefs, but not so far down for courts to declare bull.

Nice try, fellas. Bulger was murdered in prison, and Tsarnaev will die behind bars. I wonder what they will discuss for eternity?