Opening statements in the trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev likely won’t begin Monday as originally planned, because jury selection is taking longer than anticipated, a court official said Thursday.
Monday “is not realistic” as a start date, and the court expects to announce a new date next week, said Ginny Hurley, spokeswoman for the U.S. District Court in Boston.
Jury selection began more than two weeks ago.
Authorities accuse Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, of planting two pressure-cooker explosives, hidden in backpacks, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Three people were killed and more than 260 others wounded in the explosions.
Three days later, after the FBI released surveillance photos of the suspects, the Tsarnaevs shot and killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, authorities say. Early the next day, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died of wounds he suffered during a shootout with police, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found and arrested that night, hiding in a boat behind a house.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged with 30 federal counts, including using a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death. He pleaded not guilty in July 2013.