Update: Moussaoui sentencing trial set
on May 6, 2005 at 3:58 pm
This post is part of continuing reports on this case, following the Supreme Court’s March 21 denial of review of a pre-trial appeal.
UPDATE on Friday, May 6:
U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema on Friday set the sentencing phase in the terrorism case of Zacarias Moussaoui to begin with jury selection on January 9, 2006, with opening statements to begin February 6. Moussaoui, who has pleaded guilty, faces a potential death sentence on four counts. Judge Brinkema adopted the procedural schedule jointly recomended by prosecutors and defense lawyers.
In a joint filing Thursday in the terrorism case against Zacarias Moussaoui, prosecutors and defense lawyers urged the presiding judge to open a sentencing phase trial eight months from now — next January 9. The trial would be before a jury, under the joint proposal, thus indicating that one or both sides objects to a trial before the judge alone.
Moussaoui, the only individual charged in the U.S. with a crime growing out of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, pleaded guilty on April 22 to six counts of terrorism conspiracy. The government contends that four of those counts carry a potential death sentence.
The defense team indicated in the joint filing that it will be claiming, at the sentencing phase, that the federal death penalty is unconstitutional, that Moussaoui is not eligible for the death sentence on any count, and that at least one of the four supposed capital counts does not even carry a death sentence. There also will be filings on Moussaoui’s mental state, and how that bears on a potential sentence.
The joint filing was made in response to U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema’s April 25 order calling for such a combined memo on scheduling and on ways to handling pending motions in the wake of the guilty plea.
Under the proposed timetable, new written pleadings bearing on sentencing will begin to be filed within 30 days. The schedule lays out a sequence of dates for other pre-trial filings on sentencing, concluding on December 8. Then, jury selection would open the trial on January 9, with opening statements and filing of evidence on February 6.
Judge Brinkema’s Court also made public on Thursday a heavily censored order she had issued under seal on Monday. From the limited portions that remained after security censoring, it appeared that Brinkema had ordered the Justice Department to make full disclosures to the Court about all of the details of secret questioning of three Al Qaeda operatives who supposedly have told interrogators that Moussaoui was not personally involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Some of the phrasing left in the order makes it appear that the judge is demanding information on how the questioning itself was done, thus perhaps exploring whether some of the statements were made under torture or other forms of duress. While those witnesses may have provided some aid to the defense, prosecutors also have said that other statements by the three further implicate Moussaoui in terrorist plotting. Judge Brinkema apparently is moving to test the reliability of all of the statements.
