Hope you're proud of yourself Carla J. Martin. After her idiotic misconduct in Moussaoui's trial caused a judge to throw out a large portion of testimony, the prosecutor of the case has said there's no point to the trial now. The barred testimony "is one of the two essential and interconnected components of our case," the prosecutors wrote in a motion submitted to [Judge] Brinkema. Excluding the witnesses, the prosecutors wrote, make it "impossible for us to present our theory of the case to the jury." Now, one of the easiest responses would be "so what? It's a terrorist, who cares if there was a little misconduct." In fact that's what a few of the prosecutors are saying, that the misconduct of just one attorney shouldn't screw up the whole case. Unfortunately, I don't think that's the best idea in this case. Aside from the fact that Moussaoui, if the death penalty is thrown out, get off with "only" life in prison with no parole, to overlook such a ridiculous instance of misconduct in the courts simply for the severity of the case is opening up a pretty dangerous door. As much as I'd love to hit Moussaoui to the fullest extent of the law, the key note there is the "fullest extent of the law". One of the things we pride ourselves here in the United States, at least I do, is that for better or worse everyone is offered the exact same rights under the letter of the law. It's one of those nifty little things that makes sure no one can be oppressed by the government in the court (you can tell how well that's worked). However, it offers a fair amount of protection, and unless we accept that now and again it's going to result in something like this, we could easily lose what we do get. The real problem isn't the judge's ruling, it's the prosecutor's idiocy. I've said it already that this wasn't a hard case to prosecute, he admitted to conspiracy for terrorist attacks. This is another one of those cases where someone broke the law, and we can't play Bush here and start deciding which laws aren't important just because it may get us a result we want. Can you imagine a scenario when improper court procedure was considered unimportant just because of who the defendant was? I know a lot of people out there want the country to shift to a totalitarian "we can do whatever we want as long as its under the guise of stopping terrorism" state, but not me. Freedom isn't free, and that doesn't mean we have to give up freedoms. It means we have to give freedoms to people we probably wouldn't like to if we want them ourselves. The lesson to glean from this isn't "terrorists get off scot free if someone messes up a little", it's "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT SCREW AROUND WHEN PROSECUTING A TERRORIST". Tags: Moussaoui, 9/11, terrorism, al Qaeda