TERRORISM: Government Case in Moussaoui Sentencing Trial Unravels

The case against Zacarias Moussaoui is in danger of unraveling after U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema learned that the prosecution coached witnesses in direct contradiction of her orders barring witnesses from any exposure to trial testimony.



One has to wonder, given the almost slam dunk nature of this case, why prosecution lawyers would have to coach witnesses. Then again the case against Moussaoui has been problematic from the beginning and instead of wanting to know what he has to say, the government seems bent on shutting him up at any cost. Again it makes you wonder.

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[edit on 3-15-2006 by Valhall]

"I don't think in the annals of criminal law there has ever been a case with this many significant problems..." That's what Judge Leonie Brinkema stated yesterday after getting fed up with the troubled sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. After finding witness tampering and coaching, violations of court orders, and false statements made to the court - and that's by the Government's prosecuting attornies, by the way - Judge Brinkema killed half their case against Moussaoui.



The sentencing trial is being conducted to determine if Zacarias Moussaoui will be executed, or spend the rest of his life in prison for his role as an al-Qaida conspirator in the events of 9/11.

Half of the government's case in this trial, where they intended to show that government agencies could have performed certain actions that could have prevented 9/11 if Moussaoui had not lied after being arrested a month before the attack, will now be eliminated from the hearing due to the shenanigans of the prosecuting attornies, which include:

*coaching witnesses
*telling witnesses they were not to talk to defense attornies
*lying to the court that two witnesses refused to speak to defense attornies (when, in fact, it appears the prosecuting attornies didn't pass the defense's subpoenas to the witnesses in the first place.)
*communicating court proceedings to witnesses (in violation of specific orders by Judge Brinkema who ordered that all witnesses be isolated from coverage of the court proceedings. This order was not communicated by the prosecuting attornies to the witnesses, but instead, the government attornies actually emailed details of the proceedings on to the witnesses.)

Apparently the most egregious offender on the prosecuting team is one lawyer, Carla J. Martin, who emailed at least seven witnesses with details of the hearing. Judge Brinkema went so far as to say, "I wouldn’t trust anything Martin had anything to do with at this point."

The defense team moved to strike the possibility of execution due to the misconduct of the prosecuting attornies, but the judge did not agree with the request.

My apologies. I some how missed your write-up, so I have included mine as a follow-up here and will remove my submission.

P.S. But I had to edit your title because it was misleading. The case is not in jeopardy of being kicked out (he confessed)...just one half of the argument in the sentencing trial.


[edit on 3-15-2006 by Valhall]

There have been several excuses given for Martin's mis-steps:
1. Her area of expertise is administrative law, not criminal law, and thus she was unfamiliar with the rules governing witnesses
2. She was personally against the death penalty and deliberately sabotaged the government's penalty phase.

I think she was just incompetent.

Wave the 'white flag' in the court room.

We need a better judge to 'massage the proceedings' aka Mikey J. and Co.