Just fabulous:
An angry federal judge considered Monday whether to dismiss the government’s death penalty case against confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui after a federal attorney coached witnesses in violation of her rules.
“I do not want to act precipitously,” U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said in scheduling a special hearing on the case Tuesday, but she said that it was “very difficult for this case to go forward.”
Brinkema said a lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration sent e-mail to seven Federal Aviation Administration officials outlining the prosecution’s opening statements and providing commentary on government witnesses from the first day of testimony. That was in violation of her pre-trial order barring witnesses from exposure to any opening statements of trial testimony.
“An attorney for the TSA … egregiously breached that order,” she told jurors before excusing them. Of the seven, three were to testify for the government and four were potential defense witnesses.
The mind boggles.
Slide
Well, I’m not surprised at the incompetence demonstrated by members of this administration anymore. There is not one single thing that these guys touched that they didn’t screw up.
MattM
Somehow, somewhere, this is all the ACLU’s fault.
wickedpinto
It’s ridiculous, but I don’t see how a hearing on sentencing is considered as sacrosanct as trial. Didn’t the guy, after the necessary theater plead guilty?
Still, at first it seemed like an excuse to throw out the death penalty, but after more reading it seems like a stupid mistake made by a very well dressed retard.
capelza
The judge is a Clinton appointee…nuff said..according to Free Republic anyway. Actually to be fair, quite a few on FR are pissed about the lawyer being such a bonehead.
The guy already pleaded guilty, and if the case is strong enough, why do something this stupid…oh never mind.
The Other Steve
I once complained about the quality of doctors at the student health clinic in college. A friend of mines response was “Well, you’ve heard that the top 1% of the graduating class ends up at Mayo or Johns Hopkins, right? Now you know where the bottom 1% went.”
Don
Just more proof that we lead by example and that employees get the message from their higher-ups in both explicit and implied manner. Rule of law? Pshaw, they’re terrorists – do anything and everything to get the result desired and hang the consequences!
So unfortunate that some people think that even scumbag terrorists should be treated with due process so that we don’t become as repugnant as them.
The Other Steve
The guy pled guilty. He’s doing time.
This relates to whether they will impose the death penalty. The Judge is basically saying that if they want to do that, the case has to be totally clean. No excuses, give no reason for it to be overturned on appeal.
This lawyer just gave a reason for an appeal.
So when the Judge says throw out the death penalty case, she means just the death penalty… the guy is still going to prison.
SeesThroughIt
The TSA: Objectively pro-terrorist.
JE
We’re well on the way to bombing the hell out of the third country for kinda sorta having something to do with 9/11 or at least the general mentality behind 9/11, and we can’t do anything substatial to the guy who confessed to being involved and was ready to die in that plane?
I’m really scratching my head here.
norbizness
I think I’m beginning to see the rationale for military tribunals. The performance in actual courts of law (See also: botched Detroit prosecutions) ranks right up there with Lionel Hutz misspelling “guilty” on a cocktail napkin and handing it to the judge.
SeesThroughIt
“Mr. Hutz, do you have any evidence for your client?”
“Well…I’ve got plenty of heresay and conjecture…those are kinds of evidence.
By the way, terrorists convicted in 30 minutes or your pizza is free.
norbizness
Maybe the TSA lawyer threatened to recall of her surprise witnesses, each more surprising than the last.
Tim F.
If they drop Moussaoui in a federal prison the death penalty seems inevitable. Find a good one in, say, upstate New York.
Paul Wartenberg
It’s not the quality of the courtroom, it’s the quality of the prosecutions. And with the Bush administration pushing the prosecutions, that tells you a lot about the (lack of) quality. You can have boneheads like this bleeping up the military tribunals just as they’ve done here. The only difference is: you won’t hear about the boneheads screwing up the military tribunals…
Mr Furious
Norbiz-
I’m not sure if you meant it or not, but I think you’ve stumbled onto something there. This very well could be a way to make the civilian court system look bad, weak and ill-suited for these trials in the future… “Those activist judges won’t even allow executions of terrorists!”
It’s straight out of the How to Make the Governement Look Bad playbook.
Paving the way for secret trials and tribunals here on out.
Mr Furious
As to the Bushies cheating and/or botching something…color me fucking surprised.
Next up? Privatizing the court system and awarding Diebold the contract…
Pb
Ok, honestly, show of hands…
Who here thinks that’s just a ‘mistake’? I mean, really… and if it really was, shouldn’t that ‘lawyer’ be disbarred or something? How incompetent do you have to be before… oh wait. The TSA? Of this federal government? Never mind.
Maybe we can hire China or India or the UAE to run our border security and our legal system too–we might be safer…
jsh26
The Bush administration is king midas in reverse. 2008 can’t get here soon enough.
ppGaz
I think it is just as likely that the government pulled this stunt to draw attention away from something else, as it is that it was a legitimate mistake.
When you have a government that cannot tell the truth, cannot be trusted, and cannot do anything right, you are left to conclude such things, in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
SeesThroughIt
The world’s fattest twins riding in on their motorcycles was/is comedy gold.
Pooh
As an lawyer, I see how this could happen. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a collasal cock-up. In real life people get fired for this kind of case-killing screw-up. In the Candyland of government service, probably not so much…
republican
He’s guilty, kill him, that’s the American way. You have these liberal traitor judges protecting terrorists and the traitor MSM supports them by not giving the real story. Execution. It’s that simple.
Protecting our freedoms may require kill lots of people, but tens of millions did in WWII which was a good war. This is more important. The Constitution was not designed to get in the way of the president and the police doing their jobs. To think so is unAmerican. A free press does not mean people have the right to criticize the president in time of war. This is not Bill Clinton, this is George Bush. He cares about America. The government should shut down all unreliable traitor news programs so people will only listen to honrst people who tell the facts like Rush does. This is the only way to protect our freedoms from Democrats who support baby killing and terrorists.
The Other Steve
I doubt it. They kept Timothy McVeigh alive for years in the federal prison.
Paul Wartenberg
For the conspiracy theorizing about an intentional effort by the Bushies to flub the court system, remember never attribute to malice what is best explained by incompetence. And this was pretty f-cking incompetent.
The deal is, incompetence does as much damage as malice. The question then becomes if the right people get punished for such stupidity (they rarely do).
jg
You think a Dem will win in 08? Al these folks who are givng Bush a low approval rating will be easily led back to the trough in time for the election. Someone will be swiftboated, a wedge issue will re-energize the base, the undecideds will be shamed by talk of being unpatriotic.
Bush was as big of a fucking idiot in 00 and 04 as he is now and the repubs won both of those and the midterms. It ain’t about leadership, its about electability and as Stormy and Darrell have pointed out all that matters is how the dem candidate’s past is spun in the heartland.
Purple heart band-aids anyone? I think its been shown quite clearly who controls the white trash morons working at WalMart and what it takes to get them to the polling station on election day.
Pb
For anyone with half a brain, it’d almost always have to be malice–but with these morons, it is hard to tell, sometimes. All the more reason to get rid of them.
Pb
jg,
I don’t know about 2008, but I do know that if the Dems just keep doing what they’re doing, they’re going to end up somewhere between the Federalists and the Whigs in the American history books. And barring an actual, bona-fide miracle, there’s no way the Dems are going to re-take either house of Congress come ’06.
Now, the flip side of all this is, if the Republicans just keep doing what they’re doing, they’re going to destroy themselves at some point. The problem is, they seem hell-bent on destroying everyone and everything else first. Assuming that we do eventually recover from their mismanagement–and again, barring a miracle–I think it’ll take a lot longer than 8 years this time.
Caseyl
It’s not incompetence. It’s not even malice. The attorney who coached the witnesses is Carla Martin, and she used to work for the FAA and TSA. And her witness-coaching may have had nothing to do with the Moussaoui case per se.
From talkleft:
snip
Go here for the whole thing: What Was Carla Martin’s Agenda in Moussaoui?
BIRDZILLA
This judge should be removed from the bench he has proven to be incometent
wickedpinto
wickedpinto
DAMN! I DID n’t close that blockquote, if the moniter could correct that? I closed the block after. . . .”says throw out the death penalty” just to make it easier for other readers?
EL
I hope “Republican” and “Birdzilla” are DougJ imitations, if not, you two need to learn something about the law and the way courts work.
I’m no lawyer, but I remember my jury service and instructions from the judge. I believe the constitution talks about due process, and doesn’t mention that it can be skipped anytime the police or president feels that it may “get in the way of the president and the police doing their jobs.” To suggest we skip the constitutional protections is in itself unamerican.
Doug
You want to keep the witnesses from hearing or knowing what other witnesses say. So, for example, when a party moves to “separate the witnesses,” witnesses will be ordered out of the court room — even though it’s public and anyone else in the world can attend. A similar thing is going on with the transcripts. You don’t want witnesses to be able to modify their testimony to square it with what others have said.
This is a huge fuck up and it’s not the judge’s fault, and it’s not the civilian justice system’s fault, it’s the fault of the executive branch of the United States Government who is trying to execute someone.
It looks like the government attorney tainted the witnesses and now the judge has to figure out some kind of sanction that preserves the due process rights of the accused. If no such remedy is possible, the death penalty has to be thrown out and the accused is back to life in prison. There is no other way to deal with this under the Constitution. And it won’t be the judge’s fault, and it won’t be the civilian justice system’s fault.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have died defending the Constitution. Revenge against a guy who helped kill 3,000 citizens isn’t worth abandoning it.
Pooh
That’s precisely correct Don.
wickedpinto, it helps to know something about your topic before you start, but this being the internet, go ahead, though I have no idea what point you are trying to make other than that you got screwed out of buying a car and you hate me for my J.D.
jg
I once had bad credit. I fixed it. Maybe I should’ve blamed lawyers for it.
Barry D
I’m puzzled at why these judges don’t throw some of these government officials in jail for contempt of court. Slap that TSA guy with some jail time and $10,000 in fines, and I’ll bet that’ll get people’s attention.
Pooh
Barry, Mrs. Martin was instructed to return to court tommorow with her lawyer…not good times for her, to be sure…
The Other Steve
Thank you for saying this, even though I wish it didn’t have to be said.
ppGaz
I’d be surprised if Ms. Martin did any jail time — but I wouldn’t want to be her the next time she gets face time with her immediate supervisor.
Of course, this has a huge benefit for the administration. They had a weak death penalty case to begin with — Moussaoui has pled to the Al Quaeda membership, but maintains he had nothing to do with 9/11. The government’s whole case depended on proving that had he told the truth about what he knew (which was pretty thin), then the FAA would hve been able to stop the conspiracy. They had a tremendoudly weak case: but now it “isn’t their fault he didn’t get death, it’s just a matter of the rule of law.”
Doug
Better than that, it’s those damned liberal activist judges and the soft-on-terrorism ACLU.
Paul Wartenberg
Birdzilla, three things:
1) the judge I think is a she not a he;
2) please spell incompetence correctly, as speeling it incerrectly meakes u look um incompetent;
3) it’s not the judge screwing up it’s the prosecution team.
Barry
norbizness Says:
“I think I’m beginning to see the rationale for military tribunals. The performance in actual courts of law (See also: botched Detroit prosecutions) ranks right up there with Lionel Hutz misspelling “guilty” on a cocktail napkin and handing it to the judge.”
Meaning = Republicans are so incompetant at actually proving sh*t, so they shouldn’t be required to.
hypocycloid
I’m sure the Justice Dept. lawyers want her dead. It sounds like part-classic government lawyers trying to cover their ass by controlling access to witnesses and shaping their testimony, and also you always have a revolving door issue with goverment lacks where the industry its supposed to watch has exposure. How many airlines’ executives and lawyers used to be with the FAA? Its a fair guess–plenty. I don’t discount the theory that she was in bed with the civil side of the matter. But the prosecution surely wants to string her up. Worse than the defendant….