Blowing Another Terror Case

One reason this Administration doesn't want to turn the war on terror into a law enforcement issue is because they're so very bad at law enforcement:

An angry federal judge unexpectedly recessed the death penalty trial of confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to consider whether government violations of her rules against coaching witnesses should remove the death penalty as an option.

The stunning development came at the opening of the fifth day of the trial as the government had informed the judge and the defense over the weekend that a lawyer for the Federal Aviation Administration had coached four government FAA witnesses in violation of the rule set by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema. The rule was that no witness should hear trial testimony in advance.

"This is the second significant error by the government affecting the constitutional rights of the defendant and the criminal justice system in this country in the context of a death case," Brinkema told lawyers in the case outside the presence of the jury.

These guys can't follow the rules. You have Zacarias Moussaoui, a guy who said "I am Al Qaeda" in open court, and you can't leave well enough alone to use the facts of the case and the proper procedures rather than risking the entire case. It's pathetic, and it stems right from an "ends-justify-the-means" comportment at the top. This is the end result of an arrogance of power, a belief that our cause is so just that we can be unjust in seeking it. It's simply no big deal at all to follow the rules when they're set out so explicitly. I can't tell you how much this angers me, as it should anger every American.

I hope that Republicans, seeing Moussaoui spend his life making appeals that his constitutional rights have been subverted, and maybe winning one of them, and going free, I hope that Republicans will then continue this line of argument about how the "adults" have returned to Washington.

UPDATE: Moussaoui plead guilty initially, so the chances of appeal are remote. Certainly the government is unlikely now to get the sentencing they desired, which was death.