People are thinking ahead. Those involved should be congratulated for their foresight. Logistics may be tough but it really came down to having no choice. The only problem is getting the right location that will mirror that of the Boston Marathon with its bucolic beginning, Wellesley women, Heartbreak Hill, Red Socks game ending, and the final run through the streets similar to those of Boston.
An early contestant in the place to replace the race was Branson, Missouri. It was believed that the entertainment capital of America for those remembering the good old days would be ideal since few would have heard about the Marathon Terrorist Attack. But rumors were about that on April 20 of this year Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede may have Dolly herself on hand. That would make it impossible to run through the streets of Branson because past experienced showed the streets would be too jammed packed.
As you know by April 20 the ongoing jury selection in the Djhokhar Tsarnaev case that is taking place on the Boston waterfront will probably have been completed. During that selection period a blizzard blew through Boston and some hearty soul having little else to do because it was a very slow day and in a moment of downtime madness which happens to most guys who attend bars and have to listen to and smile at the rants of their customers decided to shovel the snow off the finish line of the Boston marathon. A picture of him doing this was taken. The Boston Police put out an all-points bulletin to find out his identity apparently believing he was a non-union guy taking a job away from a union guy which is a pending felony in Boston. Upon learning his name and that he had no prior criminal record the Boston U.S. attorney called off a planned early morning raid on his house.
He said he did this little bit of shoveling because the finish line represents to him “The love of something that is way bigger than any of us.” That was enough for Djhokhar’s lawyers to rush into court during the jury selection process and again demand that venue of the trial be changed. They averred to the judge that: “compelling stories of bombing victims continue to receive play and resonate in the Boston media market. . . Such stories, and the widespread reaction to them, underscore the impossible task of unmasking juror bias in the very community where ‘everyone owns the Marathon.’”
The judge after deliberating over their third, or is it fourth, attempt by Djhokhar’s lawyers to move the case out of Boston will deny their request for a change. It’d seem the lawyers could figure out that once the trial started with the jury empanelment the judge wasn’t going to move it. But the hoopla caused by the shoveling incident reminded everyone that when the trial is really heating up the Boston Marathon is scheduled to take place with the hundreds of thousand spectators and thousands of runners all of whom will be mindful of the terrorist attack which resulted in the matters then pending before the court.
This event will obviously effect every juror sitting on the case. The question the judge in the case should now be facing, and all of us must consider the same thing, is given that the event will saturate the local media with no way any juror to avoid being influenced about it, how can it be assured that the 2015 Boston Marathon be run in such a way that on some future date an Appeals Court will say what is obvious to all that a trial in Boston on and around the days of the Boston Marathon about the Boston Marathon terrorist attack is plainly wrong.
As taxpayer I’m aware this first trial of the terror bombing is going to cost us millions; it seems strange so much taxpayer money has to be paid for it. I’m not too happy thinking that an Appeals Court will deem it necessary to try it all over again.
I know it would have been easier to move the trial but that is now a moot question. That is why some who are thinking ahead believe it is best to move the Boston Marathon to another location. Park City in Utah, the home of the Sundance Movie Festival, has been looked at but the elevation is too high; Des Moines, Iowa, is still in play but some fear too many presidential candidates and their supporters will come to town leaving no hotel space for the runners; Seattle, Washington, was dropped because of the bad feeling those people have after losing the Super Bowl to the Patriots. It now appears it may end up at Phoenix, Arizona, which like Boston is the capital and largest city in the state, it has a professional baseball team, its college women from the University of Arizona and Arizona State equal Wellesley, and most importantly, it is where the Patriots won the 2015 Super Bowl.