On The Front Lines
TRI Attorneys Ask U.S. Supreme Court to Uphold Rule of Law, Protect Moussaoui's Sixth Amendment Right to Access Witnesses
WASHINGTON -- Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute, in cooperation with the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, have filed a friend of the court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui v. United States of America. In asking the Supreme Court to agree to overturn the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal's ruling, Institute attorneys are looking to the high court to provide some guidance for lower courts as to what the Constitution requires and forbids when prosecutorial claims of national security clash with the fair-trial rights of defendants. The Fourth Circuit's ruling, which denied Moussaoui access to witnesses in his defense and reinstated the U.S. government's right to seek the death penalty against him for his alleged involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks, recognized for the first time in the nation's history a "national security" exception to the Sixth Amendment. Specifically, the brief asks the justices to determine whether the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution permits the government to prosecute a person for a crime while denying him access to witnesses in his favor. A copy of the Institute's brief is available here."As our courts have long ruled, few rights are more fundamental than the right of an accused individual to present witnesses in his own defense," stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
Zacarias Moussaoui is under indictment on six counts of conspiracy related to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Under four of those counts, Moussaoui faces the death penalty. Thus, attempting to prove that he played no role in the September 11 attacks, Moussaoui has invoked his rights under the Sixth Amendment, which states that among other things, in all criminal prosecutions the defendant has a right to counsel, a speedy and public trial before an impartial jury, to be informed of the nature of the accusation and to confront witnesses against him. The Sixth Amendment also gives a defendant the right to have "compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor." However, the federal government has repeatedly blocked Moussaoui's attempts to depose certain individuals who may have relevant knowledge and are being held incommunicado by the government. In 2003, U.S. district court judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that the government could not insist on the death penalty for Moussaoui while denying him access to possible exculpatory evidence. However, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling in April 2004. In their brief supporting Moussaoui's right to access witnesses in his defense, Institute attorneys reference the seminal United States v. Burr ruling in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the Compulsory Process Clause "must be deemed sacred by the courts." In arguing that this case involves a question of national importance worthy of review by the high court, Institute attorneys pointed out that the government's practice of denying Moussaoui witnesses in his defense runs contrary to the intent of the Framers of the Constitution, as well as the intent of Congress in the Classified Information Procedures Act. The brief also asks the Supreme Court to remind the lower courts and the Executive Branch of government that "a state of war is not a blank check for the President" where constitutional rights are at stake. Furthermore, Institute attorneys state, the fact that Moussaoui is a foreign citizen should not change the equation.
The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.
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