Boston Bombing suspect loses bid to delay trial over venue fight

Tsarnaev has argued the trial should be moved because jurors in Massachusetts will be biased against him, given the severity of the April 2013 attack, which killed three and injured scores of others.

It was the second time Tsarnaev's request for a change of venue to New York or Washington was denied. He had also sought to postpone the trial to prepare for potential testimony by a friend who pleaded guilty in a related gun case.

The Dec. 31 motion exposed a sharp disagreement between the three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston who considered it. Dissenting from the 2-1 decision, U.S. Circuit Judge Juan Torruella said he would have granted a delay and that he didn't have enough time to review almost 10,000 pages of documents underlying the appeal. He wrote "such a rushed and frenetic process is the antithesis of due process."

Tsarnaev, 21, faces possible execution if convicted.

The majority, including Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch and U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Howard, disagreed with Torruella's accusation of a rush to judgment. Lynch wrote that, despite the short time from appeal to ruling, the court had been expecting a venue challenge for some time.

U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr., who is overseeing the case, had previously denied a request for a short delay while the appeals court decided on the venue bid, saying a postponement would disrupt potential jurors' schedules. Prosecutors opposed any delay or venue change.

Mark Pearlstein, a former federal prosecutor who isn't involved in the case, said the defense is likely to use the rejection as a reason to appeal if Tsarnaev is convicted, Kazinform refers to Bloomberg.

The venue issue "will be one of the major appellate issues," he said.