If the Bush Admin. Aims to Win Terror War, Why Botch All Prosecutions?

[innerSpaceman]

Seems that the prosecution efforts to get the death penalty for confessed September 11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui have been dashed ... due to prosecutorial misconduct, natch.

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema gutted the prosection's death penalty case by disallowing their witnesses from the Federal Aviation Administration, who had been coached and otherwise witness tampered in direct contravention of the judge's order. The FAA witnesses were going to testify about how they could have prevented 9/11 if Moussaoui had alerted the FBI about the plot. (Moussaoui was in jail on 9/11, but has pled guilty to murder charges for failing to alert authorities about the terror plot he was aware of).

The judge did not go so far as to grant the defense motion to take the death penalty off the table, but it seems unlikely the government can prove its case for death without the FAA witnesses. Perhaps if the government is serious about prosecuting terrorists, it should stop tampering with witnesses and allow justice to proceed unimpeded.

"In all the years I have been on the bench," Judge Brinkema told a hushed and crowded courtroom, "I have never seen such an egregious violation." A judge for 12 years, she called a government lawyer's attempt to shape the testimony of seven key witnesses a "significant error ... affecting the constutional rights of this defendant and, more importantly, the integrity of the criminal justice system in this country."


This weeks' developments marked another major embarassment in the Justice Department's attempts to prosecute terrorists. Earlier terrorist convictions in Detroit were set aside because of prosecutorial misconduct. And the sentences imposed in Buffalo, NY are in jeopardy because of the Bush administration's controversial program of warrantless wiretaps. Prosecutions in Boise, Idaho, Portland, Oregon and elsewhere has foundered as well.


Great Job, Bush Justice Department! Now we know why they want to treat terrorism events as acts of war rather than crimes.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

It boggles the mind.

I'm sure it wasn't the fault of the prosecution though. It was the traitorous Judge who doesn't understand that constitutional rights don't matter when we are at war. Freedom is on the march. Blah blah blah...

[sleepyjeff]

I wonder what percentage of the Justice department was hired or appointed durring the Bush years and what percentage are career bureacrats?

[wendybeth]

Is there a difference?

[CoasterMatt]

As long as Cheney isn't doing the aiming

[Alex]

The entire Moussaoui thing is an embarrassment. Accuse a guy of doing a whole bunch of horrible things when you don't have much evidence for many of them. Then the guy pleads guilty when he probably didn't do several of the things he wants to claim he did. Then everybody involved does their best to act like courtrooms are a place for poorly behaved, slightly retarted monkeys.

Let the man have the self-glory of claiming to be more important than he was. Put him in jail for the rest of his life without trying for the death penalty (which was unlikely anyway and requires a very novel theory of what is death-penalty worthy) and everybody go home three years ago.

Dahlia Lithwick at Slate has had the whole Moussaoui fiasco pegged from the very beginning. I recommend reading her articles on the topic over the years.

[innerSpaceman]

The Judge has practically said she will not allow the death penalty, noting that it's quite the novel theory to sentence someone to death for a failure to act, rather than an actual act.

Never been done, and she's not about to start.