A Trial Tainted

Since the beginning of March, several surprising developments have brought Zacarias Moussaoui’s trial to the covers of major dailies around the world. Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is in the penalty phase of his federal trial, having already plead guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. The trial’s latest revelation was that Carla J. Martin, a lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration, had coached several aviation officials who were scheduled to testify for the prosecution. In light of these facts, District Judge Leonie Brinkema last Tuesday decided to exclude the testimony of any witnesses who could have offered information about what steps might have been taken to prevent the 9/11 attacks had Moussaoui been truthful when arrested three weeks prior. On Friday, she reconsidered and decided to allow testimony from seven officials from the Federal Aviation Administration, but not the ones whom Martin had improperly advised.

Because of Martin’s coaching and Brinkema’s subsequent restrictions, a death penalty conviction for Moussaoui looks much less likely. And because of our firm position against capital punishment, we welcome the likely outcome of this scenario—a lifetime prison sentence, rather than a lethal injection, for Moussaoui. Yet, it will arrive due to less-than-fortunate circumstances. This episode reveals an impermissible misconduct from the executive branch and its prosecuting arm.

True, it is no easy task to prosecute immensely complex cases against terrorist suspects. But considering the vast amount of resources required to build and prosecute a case like Moussaoui’s, the Department of Justice must be much more careful with its own and other lawyers assisting in the prosecution. According to Brinkema’s ruling, Martin sent e-mails to the seven aviation officials containing descriptions of opening statements from the prosecution and commentary on government witnesses. Brinkema called these tactics an “egregious violation of a rule on witnesses.” We stand by the judge and, by extension, the American judicial system in condemning such an infringement.

We hope that this sort of misconduct does not repeat itself, either in this trial or in future ones, and that the federal government appropriately disciplines those lawyers responsible for any prosecutorial misconduct. And we hope that Moussaoui is properly punished without the advent of the death penalty and the federal prosecution more carefully prepares for future terrorism cases in order to avoid embarrassments like the one from this past week.