Unhelpful

Interesting news today, I suppose. The US has refused to comply with a judge’s order to permit Zacarias Moussaoui access to defense witnesses.

Yahoo (AP) article here.

The US Justice Department needs to re-read some fairly high-level elements of our Constitution, particularly Amendment VI, the relevant portions read:”In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…”" to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor….”

That means in a nutshell, he has a right to have the witnesses he is asking for. If the Justice Department continues to refuse him his rights, here is how his trial should proceed, assuming a few things I will get to shortly:

He will be convicted. He will appeal, his conviction will be overturned on appeal,and he will go free. The government’s position on the whole matter is that he is guilty because they say he is guilty, but they can’t produce their evidence citing national security interests.

I have little objection to the government keeping certain information secret when it comes to national security. However, if something is secret, and that secret cannot be told, then it cannot be used as evidence in a court. We cannot allow the administrative branch of the government to usurp the power of the judicial branch, which is precisely what they are trying to do. The powers were distributed with their system of checks and balances for a reason, to prevent exactly this. Allowing convictions based on secrets cannot be permitted for the very reason that it puts accuser, judge, and executioner in one convenient package, with no oversight.

If Moussaoui is denied his witnesses, and he is convicted, then I believe that that conviction should be overturned for violation of his Constitutional rights. Do I believe he’s guilty of whatever crimes he’s being accused of? Quite probably, I’m certainly not in a position to know. But we have rules about how to conduct a criminal trial, and some of those rules are so important that they are written at the highest level - our Constitution - and if our government willingly violates our most prized rights, then it needs to be replaced.

That being said, most of the Rights guaranteed to use have already been sneaked away by various laws, despite the overriding level of Constitutional law. The Sixth in particular has already been flagrantly raped, the case of Kevin Mitnick comes to mind rather easily. Our legal system has de-leveled rather badly. In the beginning, we had the Constitution, and it was good. Then over the next few decades legal decisions were made on the basis of the written law. Today, judicial decisions are made based on other judicial decisions, and rarely on the basis of the written law. Tomorrow, judicial decisions will be made by the Executive branch.

It’s time to nuke it all from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.