A Defense Attorney’s Nightmare?

It has occurred to me that defense attorneys for the surviving Tsarnaev brother have a nightmare on their hands.

How can anyone defend the man accused of the finish-line bombings at the Boston Marathon? I don't know, but someone has to.

I'm not a lawyer by any stretch, and it would be easy to say "Just lock the guy up until he can be put to death." But if you believe in our legal system at all, you know there are things that have to happen first.And the right to a fair trial is part of it.

Maybe Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will plead guilty, we don't know. But the people who were killed and those who were maimed or otherwise injured deserve justice, too.

I remember in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing and the arrest of Timothy McVeigh when I was working on a story with this same premise. I remember the local defense attorney who cut me off with "No comment." He either didn't want to talk or think about it, or he didn't want to tip his hand about trial strategy in any case.

Regardless, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's defense team has their work cut out for them> I saw an Associated Press story that says the defense, with all the evidence tying him to the case, may just try to keep him away from the executioner.

But for what we know about it, even that possibility is hard to imagine.