[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA, N.C.

[Rick Halperin]

April 20


USA:

Defense rests in Moussaoui trial


Defense lawyers closed their case for sparing Zacarias Moussaoui's life
Thursday after the government admitted it had no evidence that he and
would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were to have joined in a hijacking as
part of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as Moussaoui claims.

Prosecutors then opened their rebuttal case with testimony from
psychiatrist Raymond Patterson, who has examined Moussaoui and disputes
claims of doctors summoned by the defense that the terrorist conspirator
is schizophrenic.

In its last arguments, the defense introduced a statement that was agreed
to by the government and presented to the jury considering whether
Moussaoui should be executed or imprisoned for life. It said there was no
information indicating al-Qaeda had instructed Reid to work with Moussaoui
on a terrorist operation.

Moussaoui had stunned his trial on March 27 by claiming for the first time
that he had intended to participate in the terrorist attacks before his
arrest a month earlier, and that Reid was to have been one of his
accomplices.

His lawyers hoped the statement would help undercut that claim and bolster
their argument that their client is lying about his role in the attacks to
inflate his place in history or achieve martyrdom through execution.

Earlier, defense lawyers tried to bring Reid to court from the federal
prison in Colorado, where he is serving a life sentence for attempting to
detonate a shoe bomb on a trans-Atlantic flight in late 2001.

That bid was thwarted. But defense attorneys were able to obtain from the
government its agreement on the statement about Reid instead.

"No information is available to indicate that Richard Reid had
pre-knowledge of the Sept. 11 operation or was instructed by al-Qaeda
leaders to conduct an operation in coordination with Moussaoui," the
statement said.

The statement also said Reid had named Moussaoui as the beneficiary in his
will and 2 FBI analysts concluded that was an unlikely decision for him to
make if they were going to be on a joint suicide mission.

The statement also said that the FBI has learned from al-Qaeda sources
that Reid had been ordered to undertake shoe-bombing attacks in late 2001
with another operative, Saajid Badat, who pulled out of the operation and
has never been heard from again.

The 2 FBI analysts also said that it was unlikely Reid was part of a Sept.
11 plot with Moussaoui because he spent the period from May to September
2001 traveling abroad, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey and
Amsterdam and The Hague in the Netherlands.

By contrast, the statement said, all members of the Sept. 11 operation
were in the U.S. by July 2001.

Finally, the defense also introduced evidence that 6 al-Qaeda operatives
with direct roles in planning and assisting the Sept. 11 plot, including
mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and planner Ramzi Binalshibh, are in
U.S. custody and have not been charged at all.

Some Sept. 11 families have criticized the government for bringing charges
only against Moussaoui and not seeking indictments against Shaikh Mohammed
and others.

The courtroom developments followed a second round of testimony from
families of Sept. 11, 2001, victims, who were brought forward by the
lawyers trying to spare Moussaoui's life. These witnesses pressed their
point that they don't seek revenge for their loss.

Testimony from about a dozen relatives was meant to counter the emotional
punch of nearly four dozen witnesses who gave heartbreaking testimony for
prosecutors about the impact of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000
people.

Among the defense witnesses Thursday was Andrea LeBlanc of New Hampshire,
who lost her husband Robert, a retired geography professor, on the United
Airlines plane that struck the second of the twin towers of the World
Trade Center in New York.

She recalled watching TV when that plane hit, finding out hours later her
husband was on it, and the pain of having to tell her kids. "To their
credit, they're all their father's children," said LeBlanc, an opponent of
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "There's never angry words, no
recrimination or vengeance-seeking."

Court rules prohibited witnesses on either side from opining on the choice
jurors will face when deliberations begin next week - whether Moussaoui
should get the death penalty or life in prison.

But the defense witnesses left the unmistakable message that they opposed
execution for Moussaoui, as they talked about how they have devoted their
lives to reconciliation rather than vengeance.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in the attacks. The
jury deciding his fate has already declared him eligible for the death
penalty by determining that his actions caused at least one death on Sept.
11.

Even though Moussaoui was in jail in Minnesota at the time of the attacks,
the jury ruled that lies he told federal agents a month before the attacks
kept authorities from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.

Moussaoui has pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaeda to fly planes
into U.S. buildings, but not on Sept. 11.

(source: Associated Press)






NORTH CAROLINA----impending execution

Appeals court denies inmate's request


Death row inmate Willie Brown Jr.'s execution is set to go forward at 2
a.m. Friday after a federal appeals court denied his request for a delay
today.

Brown, 61, is still waiting to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court about an
appeal and Gov. Mike Easley about his request for clemency. 2 federal
appeals court judges affirmed today the opinion by U.S. District Court
Judge Malcolm Howard's that the state has proposed adequate measures to
ensure Brown is unconscious before he is injected with lethal drugs.

The state will have a doctor and nurse monitor a medical device that
measures brain waves to indicate how sedated Brown is before paralytic and
heart-stopping drugs are injected. Brown's lawyers have argued that he is
at risk for a painful execution because an anesthesiologist is the only
medical professional truly qualified to determine if he is fully
unconscious.

Brown was sentenced to death for the 1983 slaying of Vallerie Ann Roberson
Dixon, a clerk at the Zip Mart in Williamston. Dixon was taken from the
store and found lying face down along a logging road, shot 6 times.

Brown, who maintains his innocence, was convicted of murder and armed
robbery.

(source: The News & Observer)