Dick The Butcher Was Right

A top lawyer for the Transportation "Security" Agency may have wrecked the whole Zacarias Moussaoui case -- or at least the sentencing.

The federal judge in the Zacarias Moussaoui case said Monday she may dismiss the death-penalty prosecution of the al-Qaida conspirator after a federal lawyer apparently coached witnesses on upcoming testimony.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said it was "very difficult for this case to go forward" after prosecutors revealed that a lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration had violated her order barring witnesses from any exposure to trial testimony.

Brinkema sent the jury home until Wednesday while she considers her options. She will hold a hearing Tuesday to determine the scope of the problem. The TSA lawyer, Carla Martin, and most of the seven witnesses -- past or present employees of the Federal Aviation Administration who received e-mails from Martin -- are expected to testify.

Brinkema said she had "never seen such an egregious violation of a rule on witnesses," and prosecutor David Novak agreed that Martin's actions were "horrendously wrong."

It reminds me of Dick the Butcher's punchline in Shakespeare's Henry VI, where, once he and Jack Cade describe their idea world and their first acts after becoming rulers:

Jack: I thank you, good people. There shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

Dick: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

Capital punishment may be too harsh; instead, let's make her the person who compares your ID with your boarding pass. Or maybe she should spend her days frisking little old ladies from Padacuh -- who, no doubt, share some common characteristic with the 9-11 hijackers, that being they are all alive. Or were.

If nothing else, we learn the TSA's incompetence permeates all levels. This attorney should be brought up on obstruction of justices charges. Tomorrow.