Promoted by Steven D.
Briefly, for those of you still following, via TalkLeft:
Judge Warns Prosecutors in Moussaoui Trial
“I must warn the government it is treading on delicate legal ground here,” U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said at the conclusion of the day’s testimony, after the jury had left the courtroom. “I don’t know of any case where a failure to act is sufficient for the death penalty as a matter of law.”
The key issue in Moussaoui’s sentencing trial has been his failure to disclose his terrorist ties to federal agents when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations. {snip}
Both sides agree Moussaoui lied to the FBI, but they differ on what Moussaoui was legally obliged to do given the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against self-incrimination. Prosecutors argue that once Moussaoui agreed to talk to federal agents, he was required to tell the truth – to confess his ties to al-Qaida and his plans to fly an airplane into the White House.
The defense argues Moussaoui was not required to confess.
The issue is crucial because, to obtain the death penalty, prosecutors must prove that federal agents would have prevented at least one death on Sept. 11 if Moussaoui had not lied. Their case would be much easier if that means Moussaoui also was obligated to disclose his al-Qaida membership and terrorist training. {snip}
Brinkema made her comments as she rejected a defense motion for a mistrial. Moussaoui’s lawyers were angry because they believed a question from prosecutor David Novak implied to the jury that Moussaoui had an obligation to speak to FBI agents even after Moussaoui had invoked his right to a lawyer two days into questioning by the FBI. Agents immediately stopped questioning him at that point.
Brinkema said she did not feel a mistrial was warranted because she struck Novak’s question from the record as soon as he asked it.
The DoJ’s overreach here is astounding. The implications of their argument for the death penalty in this case is plain scary. In the prosecutor’s words from his opening statement, “He lied, and 3,000 people died” & so must be murdered by the State, despite there being no evidence that Moussaoui knew about or participated in the 9/11 attacks, or had any direct contact with the 19 hijackers. As Jeralynn points out, Michael Fortier, who had demonstrable foreknowledge of the Oaklahoma City bombing, received only 12 years.
This is blood lust. The word has come down that Bush and Gonzales want someone to die so they can show their macho followers they’re protecting the country trom terra. It’s the old “notch on the belt” western motif.
what, if anything , he might have been able to reveal if Ashcroft/Gonzales hadn’t insisted on seeking the death penalty & had negotiated a plea instead.
bloodlust, revenge, notch on the belt, scapegoat, assisted suicide/martyrdom — there’s lots of words to characterize this, none of them pretty . . .
Exactly how many officials or employees were fired/reprimanded for their failure to act on prior knowledge to attempt any prevention of the 9/11 attack?
Boosh lied, people died. LOTSA people.
In this article from the NYTimes it looks like the superiors of one agent involved were neglecting their responsibilities as well.
WASHINGTON, March 9 — An F.B.I. agent told a jury on Thursday that when he arrested Zacarias Moussaoui on immigration charges three weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks he was convinced that Mr. Moussaoui was an Islamic extremist who knew about some terrorist plan involving airplane hijackings.
But the agent, Harry Samit, testified that Mr. Moussaoui’s lies sent him off on “wild goose chases” up to the day of the attacks.
Mr. Samit testified that he tried to obtain warrants to search Mr. Moussaoui’s belongings but was hampered because Mr. Moussaoui had concealed that he was a member of Al Qaeda and that the group was plotting to crash planes into buildings.
Mr. Novak asked Mr. Samit what would have happened had Mr. Moussaoui admitted to that information in August 2001.
“I would have asked additional questions about his role in Al Qaeda and his relation to Osama bin Laden,” the agent replied. “It would have opened up a whole world of questions.”
If the agent had reason enough to believe ZM’s involvement in Islamic extremism to pull him out of circulation and seek search warrants, doesn’t that show a decent level of information?
Mr. Samit testified that when he arrested Mr. Moussaoui on Aug. 16, 2001, in Minnesota, the immigration charges were mainly a way to take him out of circulation until officials could learn what was occurring.
After failing two times to have superiors seek warrants to search Mr. Moussaoui’s belongings and computer because of what they said was insufficient information, Mr. Samit said he settled on a final plan. He said the French government had agreed to have Mr. Moussaoui deported to France, his home country, under terms in which French law enforcement officials would search his belongings on landing in Paris.
If enough information was possessed to pull him out of circulation and seek a search warrant TWICE and be DENIED by superiors, doesn’t that say the agent was convinced he needed to search the possessions? This was from the time he was taken into custody on August 16th?
In questioning Mr. Samit, Mr. Novak asked loudly whether Mr. Moussaoui had reached out from the local jail to tell him what he knew about Al Qaeda in the immediate days before the attack. By that time, Mr. Moussaoui had said he would not speak to investigators without a lawyer, and Judge Brinkema ruled the question improper, but said it did not rise to a mistrial.
If ZM was in custody from 8-16, how did the FBI not have the authority to search his possessions in all that time? Does invoking the right to an attorney make us eligible for the death penalty?
lots of ’em.
According to Sy Hersh in Chain of Command, even the French dossier on ZM indicated only possible ties to ‘terrorists,’ and that the FBI didn’t even consider going to a regular federal judge for a search warrant. This is the ‘reasonable suspicion’ vs. ‘probable cause’ divide. C Rowley’s complaint, you’ll remember, was that the DoJ refused to apply for a FISA warrant — again, presumably because they lacked probable cause. In light of the NSA scandal, she now appears more like yet another DoJ civil rights violator.
One wouldn’t want a person’s arrest/detention on immigration charges alone (which is what they originally held him under) to provide a free pass to search private property without further evidence of criminal behaviour.
Invoking the right to an attorney isn’t why he is in jeopardy now. Had he invoked his right to silence (or an attorney) immediately, the whole ‘he lied, he must die’ motive would be moot. It’s that he talked to them before invoking it; now they want to use his false exulpatory stories against him, & in a very weird twist, basically assert that he should have incriminated himself so that they could proceed to investigate & prevent. Of course that last bit is open to a great deal of dispute, which I imagine will be at the heart of the defense case.
It’s rather novel legal theory, & as the judge indicated, rather dubious.
They should have had probable cause based on the tips from the flight school instructors. The overstay violation could have still taken him into custody but the evidence at the flight schools should have justified at least a search of his bags.
It’s hard to believe that the warrant requests were blocked for any valid reason, privacy concerns least of all.
They should have had probable cause based on the tips from the flight school instructors.
Hate to point this out, but that is exactly the kind of thinking that the Bush administration is currently advocating. Even their lawyers though, won’t call it probable cause.
The “tips” were suspicions, not evidence of criminal behavior. The tips boil down to: he was a lousy pilot (like other rich wanna-be flyboys), acted weird when asked about his religion, and is an Arab. Even Pan Am, whom Prevost (the instructor) first notified, only called the FBI after “some hesitancy.”
No, there was more to it than that. He had not even flown solo yet when he was requesting specific instruction on tasks beyond his ability. At a few times, he showed signs of being uncomfortable flying and his behavior was out of character for the money he was investing and his stated goals.
ZM wasn’t any stranger to the FBI. When I mentioned the flight instructor tips, I wasn’t talking about his mideast reference or religion or anything along those lines. This case and most others similar have little to do with Islamic extremism. Most evidence gives credibility that al Quida is a criminal mercenary network that’s financed through illegal, govt enabled conspiracies.
probable cause has specific requirements & a legal definition that wishful thinking can’t change — not even if you’re George Bush.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree — I’m going with
Sy Hersh’s account over vague suspicions you’re alluding to. NOthing youv’e said rises to probable cause.
Crowley’s words & actions make sense now in light of what we now know. She, like others, thought FISA was a great way to bypass normal criminal warrant procedures. It wasn’t a universal view at the time in the DoJ.
Isn’t she saying that probable cause existed based on the information the first field agent was using and warrants denied?
Isn’t she saying that probable cause existed based on the information the first field agent was using and warrants denied?
Not as I’m reading it. They had “reasonable suspicion,” “reasonable supsicion.”
Time’s “ripened into PC” is belied by the fact they didn’t even present the French dossier to the judge. Refusal to be searched does NOT constitue PC!
Nothing new was presented to the judge, only the fact of the attacks hours earlier. “9/11 changed everything,” as they love to remind us. He was declared a material witness. “To say then, as has been iterated numerous times, that probable cause did not exist until after the disasterous event occurred, is really to acknowledge that the missing piece of probable cause was only the FBI’s (FBIHQ’s) failure to appreciate that such an event could occur. The probable cause did not otherwise improve or change.”
One can dispute that linkage or not. But if we accept the claim, then the fact that the gov’t had heard talk elsewhere about planes being used as weapons would belie their argument that ZM’s interrogation was the missed opportunity to prevent the attacks. It’s circular, like much of their logic in this case.
Keep in mind the book was published before the NSA scandal exploded.
I’m not referring to PC in any respect to 9/11, but in general associations discovered in prior investigations that linked ZM to AQ in addition to information from the French a few days after his arrest.
FBIHQ had other knowledge, including the Phoenix memo which they did not distribute or use to confirm the need for a warrant.
I’m saying that any failure to prevent 9/11 is not the fault or responsibility of ZM and the death sentence for that is ridiculous in light of so much unpunished govt negligence/incompetence.
ah-HA! I found it!
Prosecutor David Novak focused on information Moussaoui withheld during interviews with FBI and INS agents. Novak read from the statement of facts in the case and asked Samit if Moussaoui “told you he came to the U.S. to fly a plane into the White House.” Samit said it “would have triggered an immediate attempt to gather information.”
FBI Agent Says Officials Would Have Acted Immediately Had They Known Moussaoui’s Intentions
This matches everything else the admin has claimed on pre-9/11 inaction.
The al quedas have to tell the agents the plans in order to initiate an investigation into what they might do.
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