A US federal judge is trying to turn the courtroom misbehavior of confessed al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui into a useful tool for picking the jury that will decide whether he is put to death or imprisoned for life.
Five hundred potential jurors got a taste on Monday of what a sentencing trial involving Moussaoui might involve: He was kicked out of court four times in a single day as the court began a month of jury selection.
Last April, he pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaeda to fly planes into US buildings, but he claimed to know nothing of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was training for a later attack on the White House.
The potential jurors came to court in four separate groups. The short, bearded Frenchman in the prison jump suit interrupted the first session just as it began -- to announce "I'm al-Qaeda" and disavow the lawyers appointed by the court to represent him.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema warned Moussaoui it wasn't his time to speak and, when he kept going, had marshals escort him from the room.
He left without resistance, but declared, "This trial is a circus."
Court observers wondered whether Brinkema was going to allow Moussaoui, who disrupted many pretrial proceedings, back in the courtroom. She decided to bring him back for all three sessions, each of which played out in nearly identical fashion. In later sessions, he also vowed to "take the stand to tell the whole truth about my involvement."
Brinkema told the first panel of jurors: "If any of you feel that that outburst or the way he conducted himself might affect the way in which you would go about judging this case, you need to clearly put that statement on the jury questionnaire." She repeated that admonition to the other three panels.
"She turned that to some constructive use," said Carl Tobias, law professor at the University of Richmond. "Once it happened, it probably made sense to make sure every group saw the same behavior -- and he cooperated."
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