^{Category: Capital Punishment | War on Terror}

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Kathy Gill reports that the death penalty case against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged by the U.S. government in connection to the 9/11 attacks, is unraveling quickly due to blatant witness coaching by the prosecution. Neil A. Lewis of The New York Times writes:

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said she had just learned from prosecutors that a lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration gave portions of last week's trial proceedings to seven witnesses who have yet to testify. In e-mail messages, the lawyer also seemed to tell some of the witnesses how they should testify to bolster the prosecution's argument that Moussaoui bore some responsibility for the deaths caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"In all my years on the bench, I've never seen a more egregious violation of the rule about witnesses," Judge Brinkema said before sending the jury home for two days. She said that the actions of the government lawyer, identified in court papers as Carla J. Martin, would make it "very difficult for this case to go forward."

Moussaoui will still probably face life in prison after pleading guilty to six terrorism-related conspiracy charges last April, but the odds of his being sentenced to death are now extremely slim.