Politics: The Sixth Amendment, In Tatters At Their Feet
There is simply no way the Sixth Amendment can withstand this. It's a clause, a half-dozen lines on hundreds-year old parchment. It doesn't have the resources to resist the massive assault being planned by Attorney General John Ashcroft and his henchmen. All it has is 81 words, that I've transcriped whole in part on these electronic pages half a dozen times in the past few months. Their importance, and the need to protect them, never fully fades for me, as it has for Mr. Ashcroft, and his ilk.
Once more, with feeling:
According to a classified brief reported about in today's Washington Post, the government is making an amazing argument, leaning again heavily on a tenuous ruling the Supreme Court made when Congress had actually declared war, and the people on trial were being subject to a military tribunal. Obviously nutty Zacarias Moussaoui is in the midst of a civilian trial. He has been confronted with evidence against him, but his ability to seriously address that evidence has been hindered, admittedly by his own loopy defense strategy (fire lawyers, harangue judge, rave with wild eyes).
But now comes the money bit. The brief claims that Moussaoui can not be permitted to examine a witness. Not any witness, mind you. To the US, he's the joker who claims to have masterminded the 9/11 attacks. He's the one who's never getting a trial, tell you what. This guy, this Ramzi bin al-Shibh isn't getting anything but constant beatings, periodic eye gougings, and eventually hanged. And Moussaoui wants to interview him.
It makes perfect sense. The U.S. says bin al-Shibh is the architect behind this terrible attack, and we say that Moussaoui is involved somehow. If any witness can authoritatively prove or disprove the case against Moussaoui, it's bin al-Shibh.
And that's exactly why we don't want Moussaoui to interview him. It was fine to let him have a trial, we thought, nobody in the universe would believe he wasn't involved. But what if a witness who we're absolutely, positively certain is one of the big brains behind this whole nightmare doesn't know Moussaoui from Adam? How does that look?
Ashcroft and the gang over at Justice don't want to know. They would rather never think for a second that they've made a mistake. They somehow hold Moussaoui responsible for the mistakes they've never admitted they made when they didn't pursue valid leads with Moussaoui in custody before 9/11. And now he's gonna pay.
And so are the rest of us. As the now-tired gag goes, Ashcroft is checking off each right in the Bill o' one by one, save for the old right to arm bears. This trial -- and the sad, sad end of freedom for probably guilty but who-knows Jose Padilla -- will see to that.
There is simply no way the Sixth Amendment can withstand this. It's a clause, a half-dozen lines on hundreds-year old parchment. It doesn't have the resources to resist the massive assault being planned by Attorney General John Ashcroft and his henchmen. All it has is 81 words, that I've transcriped whole in part on these electronic pages half a dozen times in the past few months. Their importance, and the need to protect them, never fully fades for me, as it has for Mr. Ashcroft, and his ilk.
Once more, with feeling:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
According to a classified brief reported about in today's Washington Post, the government is making an amazing argument, leaning again heavily on a tenuous ruling the Supreme Court made when Congress had actually declared war, and the people on trial were being subject to a military tribunal. Obviously nutty Zacarias Moussaoui is in the midst of a civilian trial. He has been confronted with evidence against him, but his ability to seriously address that evidence has been hindered, admittedly by his own loopy defense strategy (fire lawyers, harangue judge, rave with wild eyes).
But now comes the money bit. The brief claims that Moussaoui can not be permitted to examine a witness. Not any witness, mind you. To the US, he's the joker who claims to have masterminded the 9/11 attacks. He's the one who's never getting a trial, tell you what. This guy, this Ramzi bin al-Shibh isn't getting anything but constant beatings, periodic eye gougings, and eventually hanged. And Moussaoui wants to interview him.
It makes perfect sense. The U.S. says bin al-Shibh is the architect behind this terrible attack, and we say that Moussaoui is involved somehow. If any witness can authoritatively prove or disprove the case against Moussaoui, it's bin al-Shibh.
And that's exactly why we don't want Moussaoui to interview him. It was fine to let him have a trial, we thought, nobody in the universe would believe he wasn't involved. But what if a witness who we're absolutely, positively certain is one of the big brains behind this whole nightmare doesn't know Moussaoui from Adam? How does that look?
Ashcroft and the gang over at Justice don't want to know. They would rather never think for a second that they've made a mistake. They somehow hold Moussaoui responsible for the mistakes they've never admitted they made when they didn't pursue valid leads with Moussaoui in custody before 9/11. And now he's gonna pay.
And so are the rest of us. As the now-tired gag goes, Ashcroft is checking off each right in the Bill o' one by one, save for the old right to arm bears. This trial -- and the sad, sad end of freedom for probably guilty but who-knows Jose Padilla -- will see to that.
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