Judge Ends Moussaoui’s Stint as Lawyer

Saying she has had enough, the judge in the Zacarias Moussaoui terrorism trial Friday barred the alleged “20th hijacker” from representing himself in court because he continued to file “frivolous, scandalous, disrespectful or repetitive pleadings.”

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema ordered Moussaoui’s standby attorneys to become his official legal team in the months ahead, after a crucial appeals court ruling on whether prosecutors can use evidence from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against Moussaoui and whether he can be put to death if he is convicted.

Brinkema’s order followed her stern Nov. 5 warning to Moussaoui that he was not to file any more legal papers in which he personally attacks prosecutors, the Bush administration, the courts and even his lawyers.

In dozens of handwritten pleadings, Moussaoui had lashed out at the United States with vitriolic, sometimes obscene language -- at times threatening public officials.

Brinkema said Moussaoui recently sent her two similar messages, and that was all she cared to read from him. Moussaoui, she said, “has forfeited his right to represent himself any further in this case.”

Frank W. Dunham Jr., the federal public defender in Alexandria, Va., where the case is set to be tried, was named Moussaoui’s lead defense attorney.

Dunham agreed with the judge that Moussaoui was only hurting himself and said that Brinkema had made the correct decision in blocking Moussaoui from handling his own defense.

“The court is absolutely right here,” Dunham said. “You’re supposed to conduct yourself as an attorney would with regard to decorum and following the rules of the court. He has not even come close to doing that.”

The judge earlier had ruled that prosecutors must make available a number of captive terrorists to Moussaoui to help him form his defense.

But when prosecutors refused, she ordered any evidence about Sept. 11 stricken from the case and dropped the death penalty as a possible punishment if Moussaoui is convicted at trial.

Prosecutors are appealing that ruling in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

Moussaoui was not supposed to have filed pleadings until after the appellate ruling.

Nevertheless, Brinkema said, Moussaoui kept sending in handwritten screeds. Even after a warning to stop, he sent two more, she said.

Brinkema did not make the two messages public.

But she said that, “read generously,” one is a request for a copy of the classified report of Congress concerning the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the other is a request for reconsideration of her order striking Sept. 11 evidence from the case and dropping the death penalty.

The first message, Brinkema said, “asks for relief to which the defendant knows he is not entitled. Specifically, the defendant has been advised on numerous occasions that he cannot have access to classified material.”

The second message, Brinkema said, “merely expresses the defendant’s dissatisfaction with” her earlier ruling. She added that Moussaoui’s message “offers no new evidence or argument and is therefore cumulative of what the defendant has previously filed.”

In summary, Brinkema said “both pleadings include contemptuous language that would never be tolerated from an attorney and will no longer be tolerated from this defendant.”

If Moussaoui submits any more pleadings, Brinkema said, they “will simply be received for archival purposes.”

Dunham said that while he had not seen Moussaoui’s last two messages, “it’s probably more of the same old stuff. I can’t imagine he said anything worse than he has already said.”

Dunham added that the judge’s action “is a very positive development for Mr. Moussaoui. Now he’s got expert counsel representing him, which he hasn’t had for the last year and a half.”

The question now is whether Moussaoui will be able to behave himself during the trial, Dunham said, particularly one as lengthy and complex as his is expected to be.

“We don’t know,” Dunham said. “He’s been in solitary confinement for a long, long time. That can have an effect on people -- and not a good one.”