9/11 Defendants Want Platform For Views, Will Plead Not Guilty: Lawyer

[Are_grits_groceries]

NEW YORK — The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."
<snip>
Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said Sunday that while the men may attempt to use the trial to express their views, "we have full confidence in the ability of the courts and in particular the federal judge who may preside over the trial to ensure that the proceeding is conducted appropriately and with minimal disruption, as federal courts have done in the past."
<snip>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/22/911-defendants-want-platf_n_366865.html

How exactly will they be able to do this? I don't think a judge will allow an extended rant or even explanation about why.

If they run their mouths, the judge can have them removed.

[Bolo Boffin]

1. As if we really needed to hear them...

"blah blah blah Israel blah blah blah Zionists blah blah blah"

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Yah, you shut 'em up. Smirk." -xCommander AWOL (R)

"Don't let them say a damn thing. They are guilty until proven guilty. Smirk"

- xCommander AWOL (R)

[SpiralHawk]

6. "Move along. Nothing to see here. Sneer." - xVP Dickie 'Five-Military-Deferments" Cheney (R)

[Bolo Boffin]

7. I don't see any reason why they would change their justification for doing what they did

Al Qaeda has released a lot of statements about why they are doing what they did and are doing.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. The patsies

[FreakinDJ]

3. They just want to air their dirty laundry

"But your honor - I am a simple religious fanatic-sociopath, with alternating delusional dreams of grandeur and paranoia"

"What was I supposed to do"

[lapfog_1]

4. Federal court, unlike the OJ trial

bans cameras. So no TeeVee air time.

All we will get is those bad impressionist chalk sketches of the testimony offered, but someone else reading snippets. Possibly their lawyer will offer their stories for the TeeVee on the court house steps, probably not (gag order is very likely).

They want their day in court to have their say... fine.

[Political Heretic]

8. How will they be able? They can testify in their own defense, that's how.

You know what upsets me most about what they will do at trial? It's not that they'll have the opportunity to speak in their own defense. It's the fact that nothing they could say, no matter how right or wrong it may be, justifies mass murder of civilians. Nothing.

And yet, many of their criticisms - when unfiltered by US media or government - are basically true. We are an imperialist, hegemonic empire that interferes with the entire world for our own profit and exploitation. That's just a fact. We do interfere in the middle east, set up bases everywhere, rob them of their resources, interfere in their governments and affairs. We unquestioningly defend one of the greatest terrorist states in the region, and we unquestioningly defend one of the greatest human rights abusers in the region. Not the only one, but one of them. That's just a fact.

We meddle, we kill, and we exploit others all for our personal corporation's and financial elites profit and power gain - and then we point the figure at other countries and lecture them about human rights or terrorism.

What bothers me most about the fact that these criminal mass murders will be able to speak is that these truths will be uttered by them, and thus they will be discredited, trivialized and dismissed by America as "just the rantings of terrorists" rather than the absolute truth that we deliberately ignore.

Just because terrorism is completely unjust does not mean that the criticisms of our Empire are unfounded. But we sort of "like" that terrorists say this stuff, because it allows us to blow off their truthful observations and feel better about ourselves.

[Are_grits_groceries]

9. I know they can testify in their own defense.

I still don't think a judge is going to allow them to ramble on about anything. They will have to stick to answers about questions. Nonspecific polemics aren't exactly to the point.

[Political Heretic]

10. That's not how testimonies work.

I don't know if you've ever sat in on a criminal trial but, the only reason a defendant waves the right not to testify is so that he can take the stand and the defense attorney can ask the right sorts of questions so that the defendant is more than able to tell their story.

Not to mention the fact that I assume the not-guilty plea is by reason of justification (of some sort)... which means the defendants get to make their case of why it was justifiable for them to commit the acts they did.

This is no different that the murderer of Tillich - he is using a justification defense, and will most certainly go on and on about why the murder of a doctor was justified.

[Are_grits_groceries]

11. I have been to criminal trials.

I know they can be asked questions to elicit the answers they want to get out. That is still much different than an uninterrupted harangue.

Since there aren't cameras, it cuts down on any visual aspect to this. The transcript won't be nearly the same thing.

[Political Heretic]

13. The doesn't change anything I said, nor will it alter the defenants desire to make their statements.

[Are_grits_groceries]

15. What people are envisioning and the GOP has been playing up

is some dramatic, uninterrupted denouncement of the US by wild eyed radicals. They picture this being played ad nauseum on teevee. They have the courtroom confused with clips on Al Jazeera.

The structure that is adhered to will prevent that. This is as much a matter of PR as it is justice. They will be allowed to tell their story to an extent, but not in the way they would like to. Our justice system isn't caged defendants screaming in court.

That they get to tell their story is the point. That they have to conform to an open but orderly process is also the point. I believe the justice system will win this battle.

[spanone]

12. democracy is a bitch, ain't it

the judge can gag and bind them if he wishes...

[AzDar]

14. Fine. Let them vocalize their lunacy. Sunlight is a great disinfectant and all...

Makes me wonder about those who are threatened by such utter bullshit (Cheney, et al) Why are they so frightened by what terrorists could possibly reveal? Oh... right. :eyes:

[varelse]

16. They will not be able to do it

I applaud Eric Holder's confidence in our Federal courts and our justice system.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder told the committee. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial – and no one else needs to be, either."

He's absolutely right. These men will plead "not guilty" and they will be convicted of their crimes. They will pay for what they have done.

What a shame that the same will never be said of George W Bush, Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney.

[emulatorloo]

17. Sounds like the lawyer wants to stir up the Republican Noise Machine and the Noisy

Noisy Boehners Sessions, etc.

Some kind of strategery no doubt. To lazy to puzzle it out though.