Defense witnesses described Tamerlan Tsarnaev's social contacts and boxing conduct, while Mark Spencer reviewed computer evidence. The court limited FBI interview-report readings and cautioned jurors about their use without sworn testimony or cross-examination. Sam Lipson began testimony about the family's home and his encounters with its members.
Full day summary
Rogerio Franca described Tamerlan Tsarnaev's visits to his home, marijuana use despite his objections, and an occasion when Tamerlan and others appeared to weigh and divide drugs in his bedroom. Franca said Dzhokhar, whom witnesses also called Jahar, twice knocked looking for Tamerlan but never entered. He qualified his recollection of dates and recalled a later encounter in which Tamerlan asked whether he had become Muslim.
Computer examiner Mark Spencer reviewed search histories, browsing records, Skype exchanges, and encrypted Samsung files. MacBook searches concerned rewards for wives of a shahid or mujahidin. Spencer said the government supplied the password for three encrypted volumes and that it also appeared in clear text elsewhere on the Samsung. The court admitted Exhibit 3306. Spencer distinguished video links from transmitted images and qualified the accuracy of a recreated desktop. Several recordings were played, but their contents are not transcribed.
Boxing witnesses John Curran, Kendrick Ball, and Brandon Douglas described Tamerlan's training and conduct. Curran recalled resistance to coaching and a foreign-athlete restriction that prevented advancement to nationals in 2010. Ball described sparring without protective equipment and continuing after spitting blood. Douglas described initially helpful conduct followed by disruption and unauthorized equipment use. He identified the brothers in an April 12, 2013 gym video but had not witnessed that visit. Cross-examination established Curran's limited childhood contact with Jahar and that Ball and Douglas had never met him. The court excluded a proposed gym email as cumulative.
The court reviewed proposed FBI interview-report readings, excluding disputed opinion and double-hearsay passages while leaving a broader mitigation-evidence dispute for separate consideration. Defense paralegal Sonya Petri read selected accounts from Magomed Dolakov and Viskhan Vakhabov concerning Tamerlan's religious views and reported support for violent jihad. Dolakov's account expressly limited his contact with Dzhokhar; an additional paragraph read at the government's request reported Dzhokhar's wish to visit Russia and dissatisfaction with America. These were report readings, not Petri's observations. Judge O'Toole cautioned that the reports were summaries whose substance agents did not independently verify, and that the interviewees were not sworn or cross-examined. Dolakov could not be brought to court; Vakhabov had indicated he would invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Sam Lipson then described the Tsarnaev family's home and changes he perceived in family members, while qualifying his limited contact and memory. His direct examination remained unfinished when court recessed.