Skeptomania - Paranormal / UFOs, etc.

TheMadHobbit · Subway Tolkien

FIRST - an article - then my hypothesis:

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U.S. blunder may save Moussaoui
E-mail reveals lawyer's attempt to coach seven witnesses
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN

Monday, March 13, 2006; Posted: 6:31 p.m. EST (23:31 GMT)

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema was upset Monday that witnesses had been coached.
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- A federal judge threatened to throw out the death penalty at the sentencing trial of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui after prosecutors disclosed Monday that a government lawyer tried to coach seven witnesses.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema sent the jury home and scheduled a hearing Tuesday to investigate what she said could be a "very serious taint of a key portion of this case."

Prosecutors disclosed Monday that seven current and former Federal Aviation Administration employees were sent transcripts from last week's opening statements and testimony.

Brinkema said that "blatantly" violated her February 22 order that witnesses "may not attend or otherwise follow trial proceedings; for example, may not read transcripts, before being called to testify."

The judge voiced her clear displeasure: "In all the years I've been on the bench, I have never seen such an egregious violation of a rule on witnesses."

A lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration, Carla Martin, e-mailed the transcripts, prosecutors told the judge in a letter.

Three of the FAA witnesses are on the government's witness list, and four are on the defense witness list.

Martin, who was admitted to the federal bar in 1990, was not a member of the prosecution team and is no longer the TSA liaison.

Defense attorneys asked for a mistrial, or for Brinkema to sanction the government by taking the death penalty off the table.

"This isn't going to be a fair trial," Moussaoui lawyer Edward MacMahon said.

Two witnesses read transcripts
The witnesses affected include Lynne Osmus, who became the FAA's assistant administrator for security and hazardous materials in 2003, and her deputy, Claudio Manno.

All seven witnesses read the e-mails sent by Martin, but only two of them said they read the attached transcripts, according to documents filed with the court.

"We view Ms. Martin's conduct as reprehensible, and frankly we cannot fathom why she engaged in such conduct," prosecutors wrote in their letter disclosing the violations. They called Martin's comments "misguided opinions."

Although they had been filed under seal, Brinkema made public the full contents of the government's disclosure, including Martin's e-mail and responses from the witnesses.

Several exchanges dealt with the heart of the government's case, as laid out in opening statements.

Prosecutor Robert Spencer told the jury the attacks could have been averted if Moussaoui had revealed he was preparing for hijackings with the short knives he possessed when arrested in mid-August 2001.

The FAA would have alerted security agents to screen passengers for knives shorter than four inches long, which the 9/11 hijackers used to commandeer four passenger jets, Spencer said.

E-mail: 'Big gaps'
Referring to Spencer's opening statement, Martin told witness Pat McDonnell, the FAA's head of intelligence on 9/11, "There are big gaps that the defense can exploit."

"The opening (statement) has created a credibility gap the defense can drive a truck through," Martin wrote to Osmus. "There is no way anyone could say carriers could have prevented all short knives from going through."

"That's all it would take to prevent the 9/11 attacks from happening? I don't think so," Martin wrote.

"Got your message," a reply from Osmus was titled. "And agree (we) need to be careful in describing how these (security) measures would have impacted the attack."

Martin advised witnesses how FBI counterterrorism agent Michael Anticev "got tripped up" on a past terrorism plotter who conceived before his capture in the mid-1990s of crashing an explosives-laden plane into the CIA headquarters.

"I will go over this with you," Martin wrote to Manno. "The issue of, did we ever explore the scenario of flying planes into buildings."

Brinkema explained the problem to jurors, telling them her order keeping witnesses away from others' trial testimony is a "very important protection of the truth-seeking process of a trial."

Moussaoui pleaded guilty 11 months ago to taking part in an al Qaeda conspiracy to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. But he denies any role in 9/11.

Trial decides punishment
The trial is being held to determine his punishment.

Prosecutors argue that Moussaoui deserves to be executed because he lied to the FBI in August 2001, covering up his al Qaeda membership and the real reason he was attending U.S. flight schools. Those lies, prosecutors allege, contributed to nearly 3,000 murders on September 11.

If Brinkema declares a mistrial or sanctions the government by striking the death penalty, she would sentence Moussaoui to life in prison without possibility of parole.

"I do not want to act precipitously," Brinkema said. She noted that she and the attorneys involved with Moussaoui for more than four years have "too much time invested in this case."

But, she said, the witness coaching controversy is not the government's first misstep in the week-old trial.

"This is the second significant error of the government affecting the constitutional rights of this defendant, and more importantly, it affects the integrity of the criminal justice system in the United States."

The defense asked for a mistrial last week, after a prosecutor posed an improper question to an FBI agent.

At that time, Brinkema warned prosecutors they were heading toward "delicate" legal ground.

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Is it possible that this is an "act" designed to prevent Moussaoui becoming a "martyr"?

Being executed, if I understand correctly, would count the same as being killed in the attack with regards to martyrdom and getting to paradise. Plus, in killing Moussaoui, we could create yet another rallying cry for extremist fundementalist recruiting drives.

But teh American citizens demand death for someone who has been convicted of the most heinous act of terrorism ever perpetrated on us. There is simply no way that the Prosecution could ask for anything less than execution.

But - here it comes - what IF, a technicality caused by an "overzealous prosecution" allowed Moussaoui to escape the death sentence and instead be imprisoned for life without possibility of parole? The bastard is put away, a martyrdom is stymied and the American people- while pissed off - won't be nearly as antagonized as if he was "intentionally" spared death all along. Afterall, we Americans are all too accustomed to an "inept" legal system (think OJ). besides, how long can we really stay angry at a prosecutor who was so intent on nailing a truly evil bastard that he bent a rule or two to do it? Or a Judge who is seeking to protect teh integrity of our Justice System?

BTW - and FTR - I would rather Moussaoui be incarcerated for life in Marion. If he IS a True Bleever, delaying, perhaps denyng, martyrdom is a VERY apt punishment. And if he is NOT a True Bleever, well, 30 years of near solitude, waiting to die is also pretty apt punishment. Death is too good for this cretin.

Gren · God Of Oreos

He won't survive in an American prison either way. Whether a lifer or on death row for 5-10 years, there will be a price on his head, payment coming in being known as the inmate who killed the terrorist.

Same thing happened to Jeffrey Dahmer -price on his head and repeated attempts the minute he stepped into prison.

I don't see the prosecution avoiding martyrdom just to frustrate Moussaoui himself, nor to prevent another martyr for Jihadists to rally around. This guy is 9/11 terrorist... in the big picture there's no way a lowly prosecutor runs his own little game -he is without a doubt being micromanaged from on high in this case. I think the best 'value', the best outcome, as viewed by the powers that be is good old retribution -they're going to kill this sumbitch if they can keep fellow inmates from doing it first.

The Jihadists are not having much difficulty maintaining motivation to terrorize and one less martyr won't affect a thing. The powers whut be are not going to lose the media spectacle of the build-up to Moussaoui's execution date, the political value of that, and the sense of retribution and final justice just to prevent one more martyr.

As jaded and cynical as I can be about American politicians of any party, I don't see them screwing the families of the 9/11 victims or of the Afghan and Iraqi action KIAs to avoid creating a martyr.

chefkathleen

Where's Jack Ruby when you need him?

Jim

There is a Lady named Dahlia Lithwick who said everything I think you can say about the Governments handeling of Moussaoui and was highly critical of it before this week. I know it is like pointing out that it was hard for MJ to get a fair trial, or that all the publicity hurting the Dutch kid in Aruba Blake but FWIW here is the heart of it:

http://www.slate.com/id/2135957/

As is usually the case, if you unbraid the message from its wacky messenger, Moussaoui's claims ring true. He has never denied that he is a member of al-Qaida; he hates America; he was involved in some never-executed secondary plot to kill Americans. Weirdly enough, if you go back and read the government's original indictment in this case, those were precisely the facts they alleged, too. Yet, the Bush administration first claimed in public statements by Dick Cheney that Moussaoui was probably the 20th hijacker, then claimed he was intimately tied to the 9/11 plot, and now claims that he merely failed to disclose the 9/11 plot to the FBI. Why is it that Moussaoui's story hasn't changed much in four years, while the government has downgraded him from hijacker to secret-keeper? It leads one inexorably to Moussaoui's last talking point: that this is a show trial.

In part this is a show trial because we haven't quite figured out how to try vague, potential terrorists for vague, future plots. But largely it's a show trial because the administration has learned nothing from its dealings with the other captured terrorists—about the need for clarity, humility, and small but certain gains in court.

Did the government learn nothing about overbilling a prisoner's capture from the embarrassment over Yaser Esam Hamdi's detention? An American citizen, nabbed in Afghanistan, Hamdi was reportedly so dangerous that he warranted locking up for almost three years without charges or due process. When the Supreme Court asked only that Hamdi see the inside of a courtroom, the administration sent this lethal enemy combatant home to Saudi Arabia without dessert.

Did the government learn nothing about distorting the evidence from the embarrassment over Jose Padilla's detention? When John Ashcroft boasted, in 2002, that "we have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States," did he consider whether he could prove it? When the DOJ downgraded that boast to crow, in 2004, that Padilla had plotted to blow up apartment buildings, that claim should have been provable. But today Padilla is in criminal court in Miami, facing fuzzy charges of conspiracy and of providing material support to terrorists. Was the administration overstating its case back then, or is it letting a criminal mastermind skate now?

Did the government learn nothing about overzealous prosecution from the debris of the Detroit "sleeper cell" trial, where two members of an alleged terror cell were convicted, until it became known that the state's prosecutorial misconduct was so rampant that the judge was forced to throw out the convictions? In trying, once again, to super-size their terror convictions, prosecutors evidently pressed an overheated theory long after they knew it was wrong.

But—and here is where we move from hubris to cruelty—the government keeps promising the 9/11 victims "closure" and "justice," and maybe it really believes that any old terrorist will do to that end. Why are the victims promised that this is their trial, where they will testify and bear witness on closed-circuit televisions—when at bottom what it seeks to prove is a speculative double-negative: that if Moussaoui had advised the FBI of something, something else might not have occurred. The defense has already begun to press its ironic response to that claim: The government clearly knew far more about 9/11 than Moussaoui did, yet it still failed to stop it.

Consider that Moussaoui was in jail on 9/11 and that even the 9/11 Commission concluded that he was likely just a "potential substitute pilot''—not a central player. Consider that he really may not have known very much about the plans for that day. Experts believe that even some of the hijackers themselves knew few details of how 9/11 would go down. Consider that right now the person whose story makes the most sense in the Moussaoui trial—defendant notwithstanding—is his mother, Aicha el-Wafi, who told the French papers that her son " … is an extremist. He should be judged for that—but not for the things he did not do. He did not take part in the September 11 attacks." Consider that even some 9/11 victims have expressed doubt that Moussaoui should die just because he led a life that paralleled—but virtually never intersected with—the lives of the hijackers.

{SNIP}

Moussaoui, Padilla, Hamdi, and the whole Detroit sleeper cell really are ranking senior members of al-Qaida, I'm for trying them by closed military commission. But if they are merely what they appear to be—low-level terror thugs willing to die for Osama Bin Laden—they should be tried as such. Instead of puffing up the evidence to support equally puffed-up charges, prosecutors could charge them with precisely the crimes they've committed: as low-level foot soldiers in the war on terror.

Consider the benefits of trying Moussaoui as a mere terrorist, rather than as a perpetrator of 9/11: For one thing, his trial would appear fair, not just to the defendant, who might actually recognize himself in the indictment, but to the world, who would see that, when the charges actually correspond to the crime, the American court system works quite well. Consider, also, the message it would send to other lowly foot soldiers in al-Qaida (who might also recognize themselves in the indictment). "We don't just go after the ringleaders. We go after, and get, everyone, including the bumbling bottom feeders." That might persuade some sleepers to stay asleep.

It's tempting to argue that the Western justice system just doesn't work when it comes to catching terrorists; that we should just, I suppose, round 'em up and shoot 'em instead. But let's give open court the old college try first. Let's go in and try to prove what we know to be true, instead of what we merely wish we could avenge

TheMadHobbit · Subway Tolkien

nice article Jimmmy!

Gren · God Of Oreos

Why is it that Moussaoui's story hasn't changed much in four years, while the government has downgraded him from hijacker to secret-keeper?

One possibility: Moussaoui can say whatever he pleases, while the government is limited to what it can prove.