Hypothesis About Govt. Lawyer's Possible Motivation
The judge in the Zacarias Moussaoui sentencing trial has reversed course and will allow aviation evidence, albeit untouched by the witness tampering government lawyer, to be shown to the jury.
In making this decision, the judge cited the cost to the taxpayers of the trial. Nice.
A federal judge yesterday revived the Justice Department's death penalty case for Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, accepting a compromise offered by prosecutors to find new aviation security witnesses not tainted by the misconduct of a government lawyer...
"I'm fully aware of the huge resources that have been expended on this case, the fact that we summoned 850 jurors . . . and I agree it would be unfortunate if this case could not go forward to some final resolution," Brinkema said in a teleconference with case attorneys, according to a transcript...
Although the government will continue its case, legal experts said the week's events still leave prosecutors in a tough spot. Martin had worked on the case since at least 2002 and had contact with aviation security experts throughout the government...
In e-mails to the seven witnesses, Martin was highly critical of the prosecution's argument that aviation officials could have kept the hijackers' knives from getting onto the planes, and defense attorneys might want jurors to hear of her doubts. But experts said it would be difficult for the defense to persuade Brinkema to allow evidence of Martin's conduct or e-mails. "It shouldn't come in, and I don't see how it would," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "It could poison the minds of the jury."...
Martin violated a standing court order by e-mailing trial transcripts to the seven witnesses and coaching them on their testimony. All those witnesses worked for the government and were experts on aviation security. They would have testified about the government's ability to have stopped the terror attacks had Moussaoui not lied to the FBI when he was arrested in August 2001.
After a hearing Tuesday, Brinkema barred the testimony of the seven witnesses and the aviation evidence. That evidence is key, because about half of the prosecution's case consists of showing that airport security would have been dramatically stepped up if Moussaoui had provided the information.
Judge Brinkema is fully aware that much of the aviation evidence will show that airline security could not have detected all the weapons before they made it on to the plane.
Especially since the weapons used in the attack were not merely "box cutters" as the American public has been told, but ceramic knives that were sharper than steel, and which would not show up on the metal detectors.
It was never believed that the ceramic knives information would be presented to the jury. The government does not want this to be widely known.
Martin's violation of federal trial protocol was so brazen that she must have known, if discovered, it would result in the aviation security evidence being thrown out.
This may have been the goal all along.
Keeping the existence of the ceramic knives quiet may be an even more important reason than protecting the airlines from liability to explain the bizarre behavior of Ms. Martin.
In making this decision, the judge cited the cost to the taxpayers of the trial. Nice.
A federal judge yesterday revived the Justice Department's death penalty case for Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, accepting a compromise offered by prosecutors to find new aviation security witnesses not tainted by the misconduct of a government lawyer...
"I'm fully aware of the huge resources that have been expended on this case, the fact that we summoned 850 jurors . . . and I agree it would be unfortunate if this case could not go forward to some final resolution," Brinkema said in a teleconference with case attorneys, according to a transcript...
Although the government will continue its case, legal experts said the week's events still leave prosecutors in a tough spot. Martin had worked on the case since at least 2002 and had contact with aviation security experts throughout the government...
In e-mails to the seven witnesses, Martin was highly critical of the prosecution's argument that aviation officials could have kept the hijackers' knives from getting onto the planes, and defense attorneys might want jurors to hear of her doubts. But experts said it would be difficult for the defense to persuade Brinkema to allow evidence of Martin's conduct or e-mails. "It shouldn't come in, and I don't see how it would," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "It could poison the minds of the jury."...
Martin violated a standing court order by e-mailing trial transcripts to the seven witnesses and coaching them on their testimony. All those witnesses worked for the government and were experts on aviation security. They would have testified about the government's ability to have stopped the terror attacks had Moussaoui not lied to the FBI when he was arrested in August 2001.
After a hearing Tuesday, Brinkema barred the testimony of the seven witnesses and the aviation evidence. That evidence is key, because about half of the prosecution's case consists of showing that airport security would have been dramatically stepped up if Moussaoui had provided the information.
Judge Brinkema is fully aware that much of the aviation evidence will show that airline security could not have detected all the weapons before they made it on to the plane.
Especially since the weapons used in the attack were not merely "box cutters" as the American public has been told, but ceramic knives that were sharper than steel, and which would not show up on the metal detectors.
It was never believed that the ceramic knives information would be presented to the jury. The government does not want this to be widely known.
Martin's violation of federal trial protocol was so brazen that she must have known, if discovered, it would result in the aviation security evidence being thrown out.
This may have been the goal all along.
Keeping the existence of the ceramic knives quiet may be an even more important reason than protecting the airlines from liability to explain the bizarre behavior of Ms. Martin.
posted by Effwit at 8:58 AM
10 Comments:
You think? What's the hush-up value of killing the ceramic evidence?
M1:
The motivation would be to avoid copycats (they are still undetectable by machine).
I heard the ceramic knives story from unofficial (9-11 conspiracy type) sources only.
Extrapolating that the lawyering skullduggery was about the knives issue was my theory alone.
I can't understand how I missed the ceramic knife thingamajig as I vacuum a good many of the conspiracy sites looking for interesting graffiti. So...legal skullduggeries about knives and still-existing detection glitches - hmm,intellesting. This 911 stuff is just a mess and this latest skullduggery is just more weirdness where weirdness is already too bountiful for my meatball. Now I gotta start delving deeper than teflon into this story. My head hurts. It's ure fault again.
M1:
I do not know if the ceramic angle has ever been published anywhere. I got it not from a 9-11 conspiracy website, but a real live 9-11 conspiracy theorist.
One who doesn't have a pre-existing condition of being certifiable.
One who knows of all sorts of military related 9-11 spookiness that has also never been published.
Such as: that there exists a tape (that circulates among the cognoscenti) of the radio transmission from the ANG unit that shot down Flt. 93 reporting back to Langley AFB that they had just downed the airliner.
And that one of those fighters returned to base sans an A to A.
Do not get any headaches trying to wrap your head around the events of that day. It is not worth it. In exactly the same way that the Kennedy Assassination can never be solved, there are tangable roadblocks being placed in front of any serious researchers.
No real answer can be gleaned from the facts as known (or even speculated upon by the non-mentally touched).
U be our man in Washington.
M1:
That sounds almost Graham Greene-ish.
;-)
Interesting about the ceramic knife angle. Of course, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that something like that could get through a metal detector.
Speaking of knives, though a bit off topic, it reminds me of a bit of a gaffe at DFW Aiport several years ago when they began opening major restaurants INSIDE security. Chili's was giving patrons a large steak-knife ("You call that a knife? THIS is a knife!") with their silverware set-up. Again, this was INSIDE security. All pre-9/11, of course.
But I digress. As mentioned before, the ANG angle matches with what I was hearing from a reliable person who has a close friend who's a CO in the Texas ANG. They believed 93 was shot down. Finding the proof, however, is another matter.
As always, effwit, your insight is intriguing!
DrewL:
The ceramic knife cover-up does gather all the otherwise inexplicable threads of the Carla J. Martin witness tampering scheme together into a nice, neat bundle.
Oh and BTW, my cracks at her in a previous post for being a former World Airways FA was not to be interpreted as a slap at FAs.
I was instead pointing to her affiliation with the spooked up World Airways, and her subsequent expertise in aviation security.
And thanks for the compliment.
Hey, regardless of her former career, she deserves to be ridiculed a bit. Of course, that assumes that her "gaffe" was a foolish mistake. She may have had a complete brain fart, though I find it hard to believe that a longtime government lawyer would make such a dumb mistake. Either she really thought she could get away with tampering with SEVEN - count 'em, SEVEN - witnesses (yeah, right) or she had some other purpose behind her actions.
Maybe one day we'll find out. Or not.
DrewL:
Well-seasoned lawyers don't make that "mistake" unintentionally.
One potential signal about what is going on will be the extent, if any, of her punishment for her misdeeds.
Speaking of the seven witnesses that she contacted. Only one brought the malfeasance to the attention of the federal prosecutors. Maybe the witnesses weren't conversant with legal procedure. But maybe they were in on the game Martin was playing.
Who knows?
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