USA - Massachusetts. Boston Marathon bombing trial: Jury selection to start today.

Boston Marathon bombing trial: Jury selection to start today. The federal judge presiding over the trial of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev says he won't delay jury selection. On January 2 Judge George O'Toole Jr. said in his decision that jury selection will start as scheduled on Monday, because it would be too inconvenient to delay it. Tsarnaev's lawyers had asked for a postponement while a federal appeals court decides whether to postpone the trial and move it out of Massachusetts. More than 1,200 people have been called for jury selection. O'Toole said in Friday's decision that delaying the start "would cause some unknown degree of disruption to those people" and to the court. Tsarnaev's lawyers want a federal appeals court to overturn a judge's decision to keep the 21-year-old's trial in Boston. They argue Tsarnaev cannot receive a fair trial in the city's federal courthouse, which is just a few miles from where the bombing occurred. Tsarnaev's lawyers filed the appeal Wednesday after a U.S. District Court judge denied their change-of-venue request as well as a motion seeking a 9-month delay. Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to 30 charges connected to the April 15, 2013 explosions that killed 3 people and wounded more than 260 others. He could face the death penalty if convicted. A look at judge and lawyers in marathon bomb trial. THE JUDGE. George O'Toole Jr.: U.S. District Court, Massachusetts. 67, White, nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1995. Holds degrees from Boston College (1969) and Harvard Law School (1972). Previously served as a state court trial judge in Massachusetts from 1982-95, and specialized in litigation during a 10-year stint at the Boston firm of Hale and Dorr. THE DEFENSE. Judy Clarke: One of the country's leading death penalty specialists, Clarke's clients have included Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph, and Jared Loughner, the man who wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a 2011 shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona. All received life sentences instead of the death penalty. Miriam Conrad: Chief public defender for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Considered one of the most tenacious and aggressive defense lawyers in Massachusetts, Conrad has spent her entire legal career as a public defender, 1st for the state, and for the past 22 years as a federal defender. She won an acquittal in 2004 for a Saudi biomedical engineer who was charged after 3 sparklers were found in his luggage at Boston's Logan airport. Before going to Harvard Law School, Conrad worker for the Kansas City Times and as a crime reporter for The Miami Herald. David Bruck: Professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law, director of the school's death penalty defense clinic since 2004. THE PROSECUTION. Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb: Veteran anti-terrorism prosecutor. Handled case of man arrested in Massachusetts during the investigation into the failed Times Square bombing in May 2011. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadine Pellegrini: Longtime federal prosecutor, former head of the major crimes unit in Boston. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke Chakravarty: Lead prosecutor in the case of Tarek Mehanna, a Massachusetts man convicted of conspiring to help al-Qaida. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Mellin: Exonerated in September by a federal appeals court that ruled he did not deliberately plant evidence before a jury hearing the case of a former naval intelligence officer accused of kidnapping and killing his wife.