Moussaoui Takes Appeal to Supreme Court

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday, challenging the government's right to put the terrorism suspect on trial while the defense had no access to potentially favorable al-Qaida witnesses.

The written brief questioned whether Moussaoui's constitutional rights would be violated if the defense was forced to rely on government-prepared summaries of interrogation statements from three al-Qaida captives.

A federal appeals court has approved use of the summaries after the government argued that more direct access to al-Qaida leaders -- or even their classified interrogation statements -- would jeopardize national security.

The lawyers said it was unconstitutional to force Moussaoui to rely on "summaries of classified documents containing information from unnamed, unsworn government agents purporting to report unsworn, incomplete, non-verbatim accounts" of witness statements.
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The lawyers posed these questions:
* Whether the Sixth Amendment permits a death penalty case to go forward when direct testimony is replaced by the government-prepared, written summaries.

* Whether the death penalty can be pursued when a defendant is denied, under the Fifth and Eighth Amendments, access to information in the government's possession that could exonerate him or spare him from execution.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-moussaoui-appeal,0,2813993.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines