Mar 13, 2006 
Bushie screwup du jour — the sentencing trial against September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was recessed today because the judge, U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, learned that an attorney with the prosecution had violated court rules. Jerry Markon and Timothy Dwyer report for the Washington Post —
U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema called it “the most egregious violation of the court’s rules on witnesses” she had seen “in all the years I’ve been on the bench.”
Her comments came after prosecutors said a Federal Aviation Administration attorney had discussed the testimony of FAA witnesses with them before they took the stand and also arranged for them to read a transcript of the government’s opening statement in the case. Both actions were banned by the judge in a pre-trial order.
Isn’t that, like, coaching the witness? And isn’t that pretty much against the rules in any court?
Last year Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiring with al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks. The trial halted today by Judge Brinkema was to determine Moussaoui’s sentence. The Department of Justice is seeking the death penalty. The prosecutor’s screwup could ensure that Moussaoui gets a life sentence instead of execution.
Talk Left reminds us that the JD has been a tad over-eager to fry Moussaoui all along. On December 10, 2003, Talk Left quoted an Atlantic Monthly article (subscription required), “Moussaoui May Deserve to Die, but Not Without a Fair Trial ” by Stuart Taylor Jr.
But Attorney General John Ashcroft seems so eager to kill the man that he would shoot a hole in the Constitution to get him. Ashcroft wants to put Moussaoui on trial for the capital crime of complicity in the 9/11 plot, without letting his lawyers take the testimony of three captured Qaeda leaders who may have told interrogators that Moussaoui did not participate in it. That’s the watered-down notion of justice that an Ashcroft subordinate urged a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., to endorse on December 3.
According to Markon and Dwyer of WaPo, Judge Brinkema threw out the death penalty in 2003, “after the government disobeyed her order to allow Moussaoui’s lawyers to interview captured al-Qaeda leaders who they said could clear him.” A higher court eventually overturned the judge’s decision.
Makes one wonder why the feds are so all-fire determined to dispatch Moussaoui.
I am personally opposed to the death penalty on religious and philosophical grounds, but I have another reason for not wanting Moussaoui to be executed. It may be that someday — next year, ten years, twenty years from now — Moussaoui may offer more information about the 9/11 plot and his part in it; stuff we don’t yet know. This will be important to historians.
Come to think of it, that may be why the feds are so all-fire determined to dispatch Moussaoui.
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