Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's trial will begin as scheduled on Monday, a judge has rule.
Tsarnaev is one of two brothers believed to have detonated improvised explosive devices near the marathon's finish line on April 15, 2013. Three people were killed and more than 260 were wounded in the blasts. The brothers are believed responsible for a fourth death, that of an MIT security guard, during the manhunt that followed.
MORE: Major events of 2015 | Suspect's chilling note: Evil must be punished
On Friday, U.S. District Judge George O'Toole denied a final request from Tsarnaev's attorneys to postpone the trial. O'Toole also rejected their efforts to move the trial out of Boston.
Jury selection will begin Monday. More than 1,000 people await interviews to produce the jurors in one of two celebrity trials in the Boston area.
Also Monday, trial of former Boston Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez is scheduled to begin. Hernandez stands trial in Fall River, Mass., in the shooting death of Odin Lloyd.
Tsarnaev, 20, faces the death penalty if convicted on the most severe charges he faces. The bill against him contains 30 charges, including murder and use of a weapon of mass destruction.
The marathon bombing is being called the largest terrorist attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
Tamerlan, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (AP Photos)
Tsarnaev's brother Tamerlan died in a shootout with Boston police, in which Dzhokhar escaped by driving a car over his older brother's body. Tamerlan was also a suspect in the bombing. Video appeared to show both brothers in the crowd carrying backpacks, and later without them.
Since being taken into custody, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has appeared in public once, a December pretrial hearing.
Tsarnaev's lawyers on Wednesday appealed a ruling by O'Toole in which their motion for a change of venue and a nine-month delay in the start of the trial was denied, according to The Associated Press.
“Tsarnaev’s suggestion that among the 5 million residents of the Eastern Division of the District the district court cannot find 12 or 16 or 18 who have not been prejudiced by pretrial publicity is not only unfair and highly speculative, it is itself damaging to the judicial system,” assistant U.S. Attorney William Weintraub wrote to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to The Boston Herald, defense attorneys believed the bombing affected residents throughout the Boston area.
If defense attorneys appeal, their request will go through the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Contributing: Tom Gatto, Boston Globe