Lawyer: Bulger will take the stand during his trial

Illustrations of Bulger and Greig were on display at a press conference in 2004.

Catherine Greig, longtime partner of accused mob boss and fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

An FBI handout shows various images of Bulger, who became one of America's most wanted men after fleeing in 1995 before an impending indictment on racketeering charges.

Bulger sits with his onetime friend and confidant Kevin Weeks in Boston in 1994. Weeks later turned on his former boss. In 2000 he led police to the bodies of eight alleged Bulger victims buried around Boston.

Special agent Barry Mawn and U.S. Attorney General Donald Stern hold a press conference naming Whitey Bulger to the FBI's Most Wanted List in August, 1999. After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger and Greig were captured in California.

The couple had for several years hidden in plain sight in a three-story apartment building in Santa Monica, California.

FBI agents found assault rifles, a 12-gauge shotgun, many semi-automatic pistols and revolvers, a silencer, a Derringer pistol, multiple hunting knives and bundles of cash inside the couple's two-bedroom apartment.

Bulger, who is being held without bail, was the head of a South Boston Irish gang before he went on the lam in 1995.

Spectators and press crowd in front of the John Joseph Moakley courthouse in Boston as Bulger and Greig arrive for arraignment on June 24, 2011.

Bulger and Greig are shown during their arraignment in this courtroom sketch.

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Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

Whitey Bulger in hiding

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(CNN) -- James "Whitey" Bulger, the reputed former Boston mob boss who was arrested last summer in California, will take the stand when his murder trial starts in March 2013, his lawyer said Monday.

Bulger faces 19 murder charges, as well as charges that include extortion, money-laundering and narcotics distribution.

"At this point in his life, his goal is to have the truth come out regarding how he was able to act with impunity for so long in the city of Boston," his lawyer Jay Carney told CNN affiliate WCVB.

The defense had initially moved to dismiss the case, saying that Bulger had been given immunity by federal agents working to infiltrate Irish and Italian mobs in Boston three decades ago.

Attorney: 'Whitey' Bulger plans to argue for immunity

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Bulger's lawyers had repeatedly argued that the amount of evidence, some 300,000 documents and surveillance tapes, made the March trial date unrealistic. But Carney said Monday that the defense planned to take another tack.

"Our client believes that he will get fairer consideration on the issue of immunity from a jury than he will from the person who was the head of the criminal bureau of the United States Attorney's Office in the '80s," Carney told reporters.

Bulger, the alleged former head of Boston's notorious Winter Hill Gang, made headlines when he was arrested in June 2011 in Santa Monica, California, after being on the run for 16 years.

Before his sudden departure from Boston, he cooperated as an informant with disgraced ex-FBI agent John Connolly Jr., who is serving a 50-year sentence for second-degree murder and racketeering.

According to an indictment against Connolly filed in 2000, Bulger became his confidential informant in fall of 1975.

Girlfriend gets 8 years for hiding 'Whitey' Bulger

CNN's Deborah Feyerick contributed to this report.