Word: brinkema
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...PLEADED GUILTY. ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, 36, self-described al-Qaeda conspirator and the only person in the U.S. charged in connection with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; after U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema declared him fit to stand trial, the culmination of more than three years of legal maneuvering that included a 2002 attempt by Moussaoui to plead guilty, which he later retracted; in Alexandria, Virginia. Moussaoui, who faces the death penalty, vowed to fight execution...
Curiously, prosecutors wished Brinkema had dismissed the case; they believed it would mean a cleaner and easier appeal. That's because, as public defender Dunham puts it, "it's a harder appeal for the government when it has lost the argument that we either have to compromise our national security or let Moussaoui go free. Instead, it's 'We either have to compromise our national security, or we can't kill him,'" which is exactly what government lawyers will have to argue now that Brinkema has taken away much of their case...
...Brinkema's order also has the effect of offering the government a conspiracy case that it can more easily win; it just has to delete any reference to 9/11. After all, Moussaoui has admitted to being an al-Qaeda member, even saying that he was planning an attack. "I was part of a different operation, with different al-Qaeda member and target," he wrote last January. Prosecutors can also place him at meetings with a number of al-Qaeda leaders. Moussaoui might even plead guilty to such a case and would be locked up for life...
While that may seem like a substantial victory, to the government, it is a comedown. In December the Fourth Circuit will hear its appeal. If the appellate judges uphold Brinkema's ruling, the government could end up with exactly what it does not want: a precedent requiring it to provide access to captured terrorists being held overseas. This would surely lead to a greater use of military tribunals or the designation of defendants like Moussaoui as "enemy combatants," a label the government has given three men being held without recourse to lawyers or judicial review. Whichever way the ruling goes...
...former federal prosecutor in Virginia who believes Moussaoui belonged in a military tribunal from the start. "But the rules led to some dramatic and absurd results in this case." Veteran Virginia defense lawyer Nina Ginsberg, on the other hand, says the system is working exactly as it should. Brinkema was right, she says, to "not totally destroy" a defendant's right to use exculpatory witnesses to get a fair trial...