Judge enters innocent plea for terror suspect (CNN) -- A federal judge entered an innocent plea Wednesday for the first person indicted in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks. Zacarias Moussaoui, 33, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, declined to enter a plea at his arraignment on six conspiracy charges in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. "In the name of Allah, I do not have anything to plea and enter no plea," Moussaoui said. "Thank you very much." Click for CNN link to story --- so why didn't the judge enter a guilty plea? yeah, yeah... innocent until proven guilty... also the trial date is set for October 14! That's 10 months away... this guy sits in jail until then? rH
As much as I would like to Nail this guys A$$ to the wall if he had anything to do with the Sept 11th attack, I think most of the evidence that we've seen is circumstantial. Maybe i'm not privy to other incriminating evidence. Lets say he had lots of money and was taking flying lessons, went to the same Mosque as Richard Reid and was a liason of Mohammad Atta, and gave money to certain organizations. I hope we have more evidence than that.....
I'm as far away from a lawyer as you can get, but I don't think there's any way in hell that the judge could have entered a guilty plea on his part. Seems like it would have been thrown out of court sooner or later.....and that's the last thing the judge wants.
They are charging him with conspiracy and that is mostly circumstantial evidence so they could get a conviction based on circumstantial evidence.
The judge actually asked "is that a no?" to the lawyer (for Not Guilty, I guess) who confirmed it. I'm not sure the judge could do it without the defendant's lawyer's assent.
**** that!! If any of those gutless assholes can't speak for themselves, let them die. Enter their plea for them if they can't speak for themselves. There is no reason a judge can't make a guilty plea on their behalf, if the accused can't make it themselved. Someone needs to make an example out of one of these b****es!!! I'm sick of people trying to hide behind their "god", be it Christians, Jews, Muslims, whatever. Your god has nothing to do with human law. If you are being tried for a crime and you can't accept the responsibility of being tried in a human court of law, then either condemn yourself to LIFE in prison or simply die and let your "god" judge you so we don't have to bear the burden of supporting your useless life. Seriously, if these fuggin religious freaks think they are so righteous, let them just die and have their god decide their fate. They should have no fear if they truly believe. IMO, this whole trial is just a big show so that Bush can maintain office for another 4 years once all is said and done. I'm sorry if this sounds too extreme, but I'm really sick of people getting away with this crap.
Most court cases in the United States are built on circumstantial evidence. Only people who watch too many lawyer shows on TV think of circumstantial evidence as some greatly lesser kind of evidence. The law makes no distinction between the weight given to either direct or circumstantial evidence. Somebody burgles your house but isn't seen doing it. He leaves all sorts of fingerprints behind and when he is caught, his house is full of your stuff. That's all circumstantial evidence. Since there is no direct evidence, is this case a weak one?
<B>Somebody burgles your house but isn't seen doing it. He leaves all sorts of fingerprints behind and when he is caught, his house is full of your stuff. That's all circumstantial evidence. Since there is no direct evidence, is this case a weak one?</B> He was obviously framed. Duh.
Take heart, F.D. Khan....guys get nailed because of circumstantial evidence all the time....this is particularly so in proving conspiracy, which is, almost be definition, a call for circumstantial evidence. You don't have to show that he actually carried out the plot...merely that he took action in furtherance of the crime...any one action alone is probably not enough...but in the aggregate, they form what I believe will be a guilty verdict.
