Word: moussaoui
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...roots of the bungle seem to come down to this: Carla Martin, a government lawyer with a small role in the sentencing trial of confessed 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, thought the chief of the prosecution team was overplaying his hand. In his opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Spencer argued that if Moussaoui had told the FBI what he knew about the 9/11 plot in advance, authorities "would have prevented" the hijackings and thousands of lives could have been saved. Martin, 51, a veteran in the aviation field, thought defense attorneys could "drive a truck" through that assertion...
Carla J. Martin has taken most of the flak this week for the potential collapse of the Justice Department?s death penalty case against confessed Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. It is after all Martin, a former flight attendant turned government aviation lawyer, who stands accused of improperly coaching witnesses scheduled to testify in Moussaoui's sentencing trial, e-mailing trial transcripts and offering advice on how to testify...
...more fundamental problem is what aviation security lawyers deride as the government?s "imperial overreach." Prosecutors are arguing that if Moussaoui had come clean with FBI agents interrogating him before 9/11, airport security could have been beefed up to foil the hijackers. In other words, they are claiming that he should be put to death because of his inactions rather than his actions. "It?s enough of a stretch to get juries to convict people who drive getaway cars in a murder of conspiracy," says one government security lawyer not involved in the case. "But these prosecutors think Moussaoui should...
...hasn?t helped matters that prosecutors have given the judge headaches over other missteps. Two years ago, for example, Brinkema took the death penalty off the table after government lawyers disobeyed her order that Moussaoui's legal team be allowed to interview captured al-Qaeda leaders that they claimed might clear their client, a ruling a higher court eventually overturned. And as recently as last week, Brinkema admonished prosecutor David Novak for posing an inappropriate question to an FBI agent who was testifying during the jury trial. "I don't think in the annals of criminal law there has ever...
...That may well be, but even Carla Martin's e-mails to prep witnesses - which were intended to bolster the government's case - ended up pointing out a serious flaw in it. As part of their case, prosecutors are arguing that if Moussaoui had come clean about the plot, enhanced airport screening could have detected the short-bladed knives that the hijackers carried on board. But as Martin herself wrote in one of her e-mails, "There is no way anyone could say that the carriers could have prevented all short-bladed knives from going through...