Judge Brinkema loses to the government

Remember Judge Brinkema? She's done her level best in a very difficult case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled Thursday that Sept. 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui may be prosecuted without access to captured al Qaida witnesses and is subject to the possibility of the death penalty if convicted. The panel, which was split 2-1 on some issues, ordered U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, of Alexandria, Va., to oversee a compromise in which written summaries, culled from secret interrogation reports, will be used in lieu of live testimony. The outcome is widely seen as a victory for the government, which can now prosecute Moussaoui without giving him direct access to the witnesses, can introduce evidence related to the Sept. 11 attacks (previously barred by Brinkema), and can seek the death penalty. But in a finding with potential significance for future terrorism cases, the panel rejected the Bush administration's claim that a U.S. district court lacks authority to order the deposition of a witness captured in the war on terror and held outside the court's borders. The court ruled that it is the identity of the custodian - a U.S. official, in this case Secretary Rumsfeld - that is important, not the identity of the prisoner or the location of confinement

  Behind the Homefront article