8.Defense Family-History Proffer — Reconsideration Denied
22 lines(Discussion at sidebar and out of the hearing of the public:)
MR. FICK: I just wanted to make a brief proffer about two of the areas where the Court had shut down the questioning, just for the record.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. FICK: As to the last witness, Nabisat Suleimanova, she was prepared on a couple of occasions, before being shut down, to testify about her own personal experience about crossing the border from Dagestan into Chechnya when she was going there to live with the Tsarnaev family. The substance of that testimony would have been at the border they were told that fighting, military war-type activities had begun in Chechnya, it was not a good idea to go, but that Anzor insisted on going, and they, in fact, did go. Things were okay in the town of Chiri-Yurt, where they were for a number of months, but she herself eventually went back to Dagestan, and then when the fighting really broke out more intensely, the rest of the family did.
So that was the first issue, that I had hoped that she would be able to talk about her personal experience in making that border crossing.
The second issue was with regard to her reaction to listening to the tape recordings of Tamerlan and others in Dagestan talking about Islamic radical ideas, essentially she was going to sort of tie her reaction to that to her own -- the experience of her family in the town where she lives. The spread of these ideas is a very big problem. They have meetings about it at school. It's something she worries about with her own children. So, again, to sort of personalize and to make -- to sort of draw a connection and highlight the out-of-boundness of the nature of the things Tamerlan was discussing, I would have elicited more information from her about that, had the Court permitted it.
And I think Ms. Conrad noticed something in particular about the language the Court used in shutting off one of these lines of questioning, but I actually didn't myself, if you wanted to --
MS. CONRAD: I thought I heard your Honor say, "Let's stick to what this case is about." I mean, this case is about, among other things, as part of the mitigation case, the history of the family. The history of the family is relevant to the mitigation case. And I would submit that by saying that, the Court is essentially telling the jury to ignore or to give less weight to this testimony.
THE COURT: Well, the evidence was getting pretty far remote from the issues in the case. Anyway, the proffer has been made. What's next?
MR. FICK: So at this point then we would not re-call the elder Ms. Suleimanova, so I think we're done with the Russian witnesses and --
MS. CONRAD: I think one question would be whether, in light of the proffer, the Court would reconsider because you --
THE COURT: No, I think the proffer confirmed my views on both matters.
MS. CONRAD: Then I'll want to re-call Alexa Guevara. I have a few more questions for her.
THE COURT: Right. And then you have Rosa Booth on the list.
MS. CONRAD: Yes. And that's all I have for today.
THE COURT: That's pretty thin. Tell me about tomorrow, as long as we're doing this.
MS. CONRAD: I don't have my list in front of me. I could get my list.
MR. BRUCK: It will be a full day.
THE COURT: Well, tell me about the experts. I mean, is Reynolds --
MR. BRUCK: Reynolds, and then we may start with the Bureau of Prisons expert -- Bureau of Prisons evidence.
MR. FICK: There's a local Russian witness who will be in tomorrow as well with the interpreter here.
THE COURT: Okay. But, anyway, you've assured me it's a full day.
MR. BRUCK: Tomorrow is a full day.
MS. CLARKE: I think it is.
THE COURT: Okay. All right.