11.Rachel Otty — Direct/Cross
133 linesRACHEL OTTY, duly sworn
COURT CLERK: State your name, spell your first and last name for the record, keep your voice up and speak into the mic so everyone can hear you.
RACHEL OTTY: Okay. Rachel Otty, R-A-C-H-E-L, O-T-T-Y.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. CLARKE:
MS. CLARKE: Good afternoon.
RACHEL OTTY: Good afternoon.
MS. CLARKE: Ms. Otty, could you tell the jury a little bit about your background? Where do you live?
RACHEL OTTY: I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
MS. CLARKE: How long have you lived in the area?
RACHEL OTTY: Eleven years.
MS. CLARKE: And where do you work?
RACHEL OTTY: I work at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.
MS. CLARKE: How long -- you're a teacher there?
RACHEL OTTY: I am.
MS. CLARKE: How long have you taught there?
RACHEL OTTY: I've taught there for ten years.
MS. CLARKE: So from --
RACHEL OTTY: From 2005 to the present.
MS. CLARKE: Where did you -- you have a college degree, I take it, and a teaching certificate. Where did you go to school?
RACHEL OTTY: I went to Mount Holyoke College for undergrad and then UMass Boston for my graduate degree.
MS. CLARKE: Was Jahar Tsarnaev one of your students at CRLS?
RACHEL OTTY: Yes.
MS. CLARKE: And can you tell us -- do you see him in the courtroom?
RACHEL OTTY: I do.
MS. CLARKE: At counsel table?
RACHEL OTTY: Yes.
MS. CLARKE: Can you tell us what class that was that you taught Jahar?
RACHEL OTTY: It was modern history, which is a senior elective, history elective.
MS. CLARKE: So what year was that?
RACHEL OTTY: It was his senior year.
MS. CLARKE: 2011?
RACHEL OTTY: 2011. Spring of 2011.
MS. CLARKE: And can you tell us just a little bit of background about that class?
RACHEL OTTY: Yes. So it's a class that is -- covers contemporary world history from the Cold War to the present, and we discuss different regions. I kind of design it thematically based on geographic regions. So we start with the Cold War and then the post Cold War, and then we look at Russia and the United States, and then we focus on Africa, and then we move into the Middle East, and then we finish the class with a discussion about globalization, focusing on China and Latin America.
MS. CLARKE: And so it's -- fosters discussion in the class?
RACHEL OTTY: It does, yes.
MS. CLARKE: And how do you do assignments?
RACHEL OTTY: I do them in different -- I give a lot of readings, long readings, where they usually read a longer piece, either from a chapter of a book or from a journal or from some curriculum that we use at the school, and then they answer questions or they write a reflection about it. They also do written pieces, essays, pieces where they have to take a position and make arguments using evidence and analysis from material we have used in the class.
MS. CLARKE: And when they would write papers, would you -- or essays, would you give guidance as to questions to ask and answer?
RACHEL OTTY: I would, yeah. For readings, there would always be questions or notes or, again, a response. For papers they would always have an assignment with requirements and a rubric and things like that.
MS. CLARKE: And did you also foster debates in the class?
RACHEL OTTY: Yeah. So we had discussions. Every day we started the class with a question that relates to something that we've been talking about in class, and they respond to it in a notebook, and then for about ten minutes or so we discuss it, and then that kind of leads us into the theme for the day. And then sometimes there are more organized debates where often students take or are assigned different positions, and then they work with a group and they prepare, and then they present the arguments to the group. And then sometimes there are students who are assigned positions where they have to determine which group they felt made the strongest performance. And, you know, I change the assignments every year. In the past, I've had students take on positions and then write up a piece in the aftermath, either they take -- they write from that perspective or they then weigh in on their own opinion about the issue.
MS. CLARKE: So when they would be assigned to take a position, you would have told them what position to take?
RACHEL OTTY: Almost always, yeah.
MS. CLARKE: Okay. I'm going to pull up for you something I think I've shown you before today.
MS. CLARKE: It's an exhibit, your Honor, that was admitted in the first phase. 1142-147. This was an exhibit that was from Jahar Tsarnaev's Sony laptop, and it was pulled up by the government a few times. And I think I've clicked.
THE COURT: I don't see it.
MS. CLARKE: I'll try it again.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Your Honor, the government doesn't have an objection to showing something that's already in evidence. We do have an objection to the narration about what it is and where it's from. If this witness doesn't know, then the document speaks for itself.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
BY MS. CLARKE:
MS. CLARKE: Do you recognize -- can you see it on the screen?
RACHEL OTTY: I can see it, yeah.
MS. CLARKE: Do you recognize that paper?
RACHEL OTTY: I do.
MS. CLARKE: Is that something that -- well, tell us about it.
RACHEL OTTY: Okay. It's -- students had to read an article from the New Yorker magazine. This was an article from 2009 called "The Predator War." It was written by Jane Mayer, who's a journalist for the New Yorker. And the piece is about predator drones, and it was an article about the predator drone program. And so students read the article and then I provided a list of questions for them to answer. And so this is what a student would turn in in response.
MS. CLARKE: And what does this appear to be? Jahar --
RACHEL OTTY: Yeah, this looks like this is -- this was a homework assignment. This would be something that he would have turned in.
(Counsel confer off the record.)
MS. CLARKE: So that's how you know that it was an assignment in your class?
RACHEL OTTY: Uh-huh.
MS. CLARKE: All right.
MS. CLARKE: Your Honor, I'm also going to pull up as a chalk, not to be admitted, Exhibit 3248-1.
THE COURT: Just to demonstrate it?
MS. CLARKE: Yes.
THE COURT: Yes, okay.
BY MS. CLARKE:
MS. CLARKE: What's in front of you is, just for illustration purposes, what's been marked 3248-1. Is that something familiar to you?
RACHEL OTTY: Yes.
MS. CLARKE: And can you tell the jury what it is?
RACHEL OTTY: This is the article from the magazine that I would have assigned that semester to the students to read.
MS. CLARKE: This is the article you just told us about?
RACHEL OTTY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
MS. CLARKE: That would have prompted the essay from --
RACHEL OTTY: Yeah. It's just the homework assignment. Yup.
MS. CLARKE: Okay. Thank you. Can you -- do you remember Jahar Tsarnaev as a student?
RACHEL OTTY: A little bit, yeah.
MS. CLARKE: And was he vocal, opinionated, take extreme opinions, or can you describe him for us?
RACHEL OTTY: No, not that I remember. He didn't talk a whole lot in class. This is a class where there are 30 students in the class, second semester, almost all seniors, and some pretty big personalities in the class, and Jahar didn't strike me as one of those personalities.
MS. CLARKE: Thank you. I have no further questions.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Just very briefly, your Honor.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Ms. Otty, there was some other -- some friends of Jahar's in your class. The Silva brothers, was one of them in your class?
RACHEL OTTY: One of them, yeah.
MS. CLARKE: Objection. Scope.
THE COURT: Overruled.
BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Do you know if it was Stephen Silva or Steven Silva?
RACHEL OTTY: I don't -- I think it was Stephen Silva.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And he was a good friend of the defendant's?
RACHEL OTTY: Yeah.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And in your class, often when you would give an assignment, people would spread out into groups, and they would discuss whatever the topic was, correct?
RACHEL OTTY: Sometimes.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And Emma Feigenbaum, was that another person in your class?
RACHEL OTTY: Uh-huh.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Was that also a friend of the defendant's?
RACHEL OTTY: Uh-huh.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: In fact, you didn't know the defendant very well, correct?
RACHEL OTTY: Not terribly well, no.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And you didn't stay in touch with him after your class, correct?
RACHEL OTTY: No.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Do you remember a course -- a class that you had -- that you taught in which you discussed whether -- what is terrorism and who are terrorists?
RACHEL OTTY: Uh-huh.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Is that something that you routinely did that you --
RACHEL OTTY: I still do.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: -- would -- you still have a discussion about what's a freedom fighter versus a terrorist?
RACHEL OTTY: Uh-huh.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And that engendered pretty lively discussion, correct?
RACHEL OTTY: Sort of, yeah. So the class that I teach, when we start talking about the Middle East, there's a curriculum produced by a program called The Choices Program out of Brown University. Also PBS has a similar activity, where there are case studies about conflicts, incidences around the world. So South Africa and apartheid, the IRA in Ireland, and students go through these case studies, and they look at them, and they're using the definition of "terrorism" as we've looked at it in class and determining, based on that evidence, how that would be characterized.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And so there is a discussion in your class with the defendant in the class about that?
RACHEL OTTY: They would discuss it in groups, and then at the end we would report out and just kind of talk about the assignment. But you wouldn't hear from every group or go through every case study.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: All right. But that topic was in the course that you --
RACHEL OTTY: Yeah.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: -- had the defendant in, correct?
RACHEL OTTY: Yes.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And are you aware of the conversations that the defendant engaged in outside of class related to that topic?
RACHEL OTTY: No.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: You don't know that he actually said that people wouldn't like to know what his real opinions are about whether terrorism is justified?
MS. CLARKE: Objection. Objection to scope.
THE COURT: Overruled. You may have it.
RACHEL OTTY: No.
BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So none of the other students came back to you and said, "Ms. Otty, this is what Jahar said about the topics in class"?
RACHEL OTTY: No.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: They didn't say that he supported the freedom fighters or the people who were standing up?
MS. CLARKE: I have to object.
THE COURT: Sustained to that.
MS. CLARKE: And move to strike the question.
THE COURT: Well, it may stand on the record. It's not evidence.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: That's all I have, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right, Ms. Otty. Thank you. You may step down.
MS. CONRAD: The defendant calls Brendan Kells.