Everybody Knows, Part 14: Comparative Trials of Russell Pridgeon and Jahar Tsarnaev

(L) Patrick O’Dea at 2018 arrest, Photo: abc.net.au (not sure why the cops are pixelated) (R) Jahar Tsarnaev, age 19, at 2013 arrest, Photo provided by Massachusetts state police

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

As Gumshoe News readers will know, I am trying to spotlight the upcoming trial of Dr Russell Pridgeon in order to examine its unfairness. Dee McLachlan had already been doing that since at least 5 April 2019, the day she filmed Pridgeon’s red-carpet speech. The present series is roughly based on a book Russell put together in haste before packing his toothbrush for (potential) prison. It’s at Amazon with the title “Everybody Knows.”

In this article I will emphasize the deja vu-ness of the Pridgeon trial to a person (me) who has been very much involved in the Boston trial, United States v Tsarnaev.

A Brief List of Unfair Parts of Dzhokhar (“Jahar”) Tsarnaev’s Trial

*1. There was no good cause to arrest Jahar. And once he was arrested, the Grand Jury should have realized there was no evidence that he bombed the Marathon. So there should not have been an indictment, much less a trial. The media, however, particularly CNN and the Boston Globe, “filled in” any missing parts, so to speak. The trial began with jury selection and ended with a guilty verdict. The boy has now been on Death Row for 10 years.

*2. Jahar’s family wanted him to have an independent lawyer but the Public Defender’s office (which is an arm of the Court) prevented that from happening. The Public Defender was Judy Clark. She started her opening statement with the words “It was him.” This manner of “defense” was explained by her supposed wish to get the jury’s sympathy for a less-than-death sentence, as “everyone in Boston already knew” he did it (thanks to the media).

*3. The claim that Jahar and his brother Tamerlan carjacked a man, Dun Meng, was evidenced only by Meng’s testimony. The brothers had a car and did not need one.  During the alleged  ride, Meng says Tamerlan boasted that he had just killed a cop at MIT. No one would boast that to a stranger, but it gave media the ability to report that Tam had admitted to that crime. (See what I mean?  Like Barbara Olsen and the phone call that established “boxcutters” as the mode of hijacking on 9/11).

*4. Tam did not make it to the trial as he was killed by FBI on April 19, 2013. So how sharply did Defender Clark cross-examine Dun Meng? She didn’t.  After all “It was him” so who needs to mount a defense.

*5. Prosecutor gave the following proof of Jahar having bombed the Marathon.  First, the FBI offers the “actual” backpack, torn and messy, in which the bomb was allegedly detonated. Its color is black as the ace of spades. Then the FBI offers proof of who did it by showing Jahar walking down the street that day wearing a grayish-white backpack. See? Do you see the connection? No. I don’t either.

*6. Two other amici curiae and myself filed a brief which was accepted by the court in 2017, to be used at appeal, regarding the color discrepancy of the two backpaks.  Eight lawyers jointly filed an amicus brief to say that Boston was an inappropriate venue for the trial. Their brief, but not ours, was discussed at appeal. Silence is golden, i’in it?

*7. There’s plenty more. Read my book “Boston’s Marathon Bombing: What Can Law Do?” I want to get quickly to the Pridgeon affair.

*8. Oh wait, one more thing about your basic non-bomber Muslim patsy. When I was giving a lecture at Watertown Library in 2018 (a moot court in which I played the Defender), a lawyer in the audience told me that there was a 2018, McCoy v Louisiana, in which the US Supreme Court ruled that a defense attorney cannot override the direction of the accused by deciding to admit guilt. Of course I ran to tell this to the Boston court but the silence was just as golden as ever.

The Long Road to a Pridgeon Trial

Unlike the Tsarnaev brothers who did nothing in connection with a Marathon, Russell Pridgeon actually did do what the police say he did.  In fact he said he did it.  He wrote the details, in English (and with good grammar, too), and sent it to such persons as the Minister for Child Safety and the CDPP (the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions). He said “Two girls are in hiding because of terrible abuse by the father. Will you please help?” The said Minister blocked his emails. I think we can agree that silence was platinum!

One difference between the trials of Jahar and Russell is that Jahar’s occurred smack on two years after the bombing, while Russell’s got delayed and delayed. It’s been four and a half years so far and who knows if the government will ask for a further extension. During three of the four years he had the pleasure (well, it would be quite a pleasure if he were into S&M) of wearing a leg bracelet to track his every move.

There was no good legal reason for the leg affair. But don’t forget media coverage. Oh, I didn’t describe it. On October 2018 the police, or the media, made Russell out to be a kingpin of an abduction syndicate. And one who dealt in the “proceeds of crime” and had sent a million dollars to God know where and had numerous passports, and maybe a false nose like Jimmy Durante so he could escape on a yacht.  OK, I lied about the nose, but the aura of flight riskiness was enough to make the leg tracker look like sensible law instead of S&M.

Wait, wait. There’s a comparative to Jahar. His elderly Russian-spicking aunt, Rosa Tsarnaeva, came over to the US to give him a character reference. She was guarded by police, staying at a cheesy motel, all the while wearing one of those things. Why didn’t Bostonians object? After all, we Boston Irish Catholics know right from wrong. (I got a heavy dose of it, you know, starting at the Baptismal font.) Well, who is going to feel for the family of a terrorist? Aunty could be a terrorist herself for all we knew. Don’t let her disappear into the population, as she might have a couple of bombs in her backpack. Plus, “Jihadists are all alike.”

Russell Pridgon has gone nuts over the fact that the police have signed affidavits saying that a certain little boy did NOT report abuse when in fact he did, including reports to the police. You can take this to be an element of unfairness to Russell, but Russell sees it as unfairness to the boy. By the way, Dee McLachlan, comforter of dozens of mothers, could give you a stack of examples where the mandatory reporters did their duty, but the file seems to get lost.

That’s actually a crime and we don’t need to go back in time to Sir William Blackstone to find it. In the American idiom it’s at 18 USC 1519:

“Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States …  or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

“Contemplation of”!  Yikes! But don’t worry, boys, those 20 years will go by quickly.

Here is another example of tampering with evidence, and it’s quite clever. The technique does not have a name yet, as it has only been technologically feasible for a while. Let’s say you tape your camera under your car. Drive a few miles. It will record the tarmac, right? Then print all the frames, each with a date and time stamp. Voila! Heaps of evidence with which to load up the file against the man accused of having given the children a ride from A to B.

Russell is sure that this was done to make the “Brief of Evidence” hard for him to read through. In his book Everybody Knows, Dr Pridgeon moans (with emphasis added by me):

“On 31 May 2019 I asked the presiding magistrate to order the CDPP to provide the particularization for each defendant for each charge. The Magistrate ordered the CDPP to do this by 31 July 2019. This did not happen. The CDPP completely failed to obey court orders.”

Note: In Australia the police and the prosecuting barrister are the same.  Here is Rule 82 from the Queensland Barristers Rules:  “A prosecutor must fairly assist the court to arrive at the truth, must seek impartially to have the whole of the relevant evidence placed intelligibly before the court….”

Russell writes in his soon-to-be famous book:

“The CDPP do not expect to be taken to task or held to account. They became angry when I dared to tell the Court what their behaviour was, and what it should be. Astonishingly, they have no expectation that they would be reported to the Legal Services Board, where, because of the dishonesty component of their behaviour, they should be struck off.”

Moreover, there are mirroring laws in Qld’s Criminal Code 1899, to mirror the Barristers rules. See Sect 590AB “Disclosure obligation,” which reinforce these obligations and give them force of law.

Dr Pridgeon says: “Every law student should be digging into these now to see what charges they can envision.”

Hmm. I wonder what he meant by that.

A Beautiful Statement by Police

To end this article, I wish to let you know how AFP Commander Crime Paul Osborne feels about the crimes of Pridgeon, O’Dea and the other Noetics. He says:

“Laws such as these are designed to safeguard the integrity of our judicial system and to protect those vulnerable people who are involved in proceedings before the Courts, including the Family Court of Australia. The AFP will not hesitate to act on criminal offences that ultimately deprive children of the opportunity to lead a normal life, regardless of their particular family situation.”

Excellent!  Spot on!  You win, Commander. Please share it with your colleagues.