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A U.S. magistrate on Friday rejected arguments by the Bush administration and urged a federal judge to order the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails. U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola said it is necessary to hold out the threat of a contempt-of-court citation to ensure that White House personnel safeguard backup tapes of electronic messages that may have been deleted. Whether to issue the order is up to U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy. The Bush administration has 10 days to say why Kennedy should not order preservation of electronic communications by White House officials and aides....

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in San Francisco has delayed by 10 days a decision as to whether the federal government has the right to target employers of illegal immigrants. After hearing arguments in the case Monday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said he needed more time to make a decision on a case that has national implications. At issue is whether the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration have the right to force businesses to terminate employees whose Social Security numbers don't match up with those on record. Last month, the AFL-CIO stopped the proposed...

NEW YORK -- Civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart was sentenced to 28 months in prison in federal court in Manhattan Monday. She was convicted of providing support to terrorists by helping a jailed Egyptian sheik communicate with his followers on the outside. Before sentencing, her lawyer told the judge that any prison sentence for Stewart would be a death sentence because of her serious health problems. Stewart pleaded with the judge to allow her to live out the rest of her life "productively, lovingly, righteously.'' Assistant US Attorney Andrew Dember rejected defense suggestions that Stewart's conduct was judged differently after9-11. "This case...

A federal court has issued a preliminary injunction barring Wisconsin from killing gray wolves, siding with animal welfare and environmental groups that argue the killing violates the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had issued a permit to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for the killing of up to 43 gray wolves. The state argued that the permit was necessary to maintain social tolerance for the wolves, which are listed as endangered. In a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly mocked that rationale. "Simply put," Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her decision, "the recovery of the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US court has ruled that four Britons can take can take court action claiming their religious freedoms were infringed while they were detainees at the Guantanamo US "war on terror" camp. The four, who were released in 2004 without any charges, are claiming 10 million dollars in damages from US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior military officials. A US District Court in Washington ruled on Monday that an action could go ahead under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says US government officials must not stop any person carrying out their religious beliefs. US...

May 04, 2006, 0:48 p.m. We Lost By The Editors “America, you lost,” crowed Zacarias Moussaoui after a federal jury in Virginia voted against executing him for the savage murders of nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11, acts of war against the United States in which the same jury had found him complicit. For once, Moussaoui was right. Understandably, Justice Department prosecutors suggested that we should take away a different message. Moussaoui, after all, does stand convicted of participation in al Qaeda’s terrorist conspiracy. His future is bleak: He will live out his remaining years in the grim isolation of a...

Moussaoui Judge Warns Againt Prejudicial Testimony Monday, April 10, 2006 ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The grandfather of the youngest victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, testifying at Zacarias Moussaoui's sentencing trial Monday, described watching on television as the plane carrying his son and granddaughter hit the World Trade Center. C. Lee Hanson said that his son, Peter, was calling from the phone. "As we were talking he said, very softly, 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!' " The 73-year-old Hanson was describing the moment before he watched the plane become the second to hit the Twin Towers...

"The Moussaoui case serves as a vivid reminder of the corrosive impact of prosecutorial misconduct. When a prosecutor breaks the rules, it's not just the defendant who loses. We all do." So said the editorial page of the Chicago Tribune last week. But hold on here. There is no evidence that any prosecutor broke any rules in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. What happened in that Alexandria, Virginia courtroom last Tuesday was the result of the highly professional, highly ethical prosecution team unilaterally reporting the misconduct of a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lawyer who is neither a criminal prosecutor nor a...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Prosecutors acknowledge their only hope of salvaging the death-penalty case against confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui is to reverse a judge's ruling barring key witnesses from testifying. But the government's avenues of appeal may be limited. Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Spencer told U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema it would be a waste of time for the government to proceed if her ruling, which tossed out half of the government's case, is allowed to stand. "We don't know whether it is worth us proceeding at all, candidly, under the ruling you made today," Spencer said in an unusually blunt...

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 14 — The government lawyer whose coaching of witnesses has thrown the death sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui into turmoil took the witness stand briefly today but declined to testify until she retained a lawyer after the judge said her actions could expose her to criminal charges. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema conducted the highly unusual hearing in the middle of the Moussaoui trial to determine what steps to take after revelations that the attorney, Carla Martin, advised seven government witnesses over their forthcoming testimony. Ms. Martin's actions have jeopardized the Justice Department's case to have Mr. Moussaoui...

<p>Judge allows government to continue to seek death penalty against Zacarias Moussaoui...</p>

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - An angry federal judge considered Monday whether to dismiss the government's death penalty case against confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui after a federal attorney coached witnesses in violation of her rules. "I do not want to act precipitously," U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said in scheduling a special hearing on the case Tuesday, but she said that it was "very difficult for this case to go forward." Brinkema said a lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration sent e-mail to seven Federal Aviation Administration officials outlining the prosecution's opening statements and providing commentary on government witnesses from the...

Judge Kessler was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in July 1994. She received a B.A. from Cornell University and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. Following graduation, Judge Kessler was employed by the National Labor Relations Board, served as Legislative Assistant to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman, worked for the New York City Board of Education, and then opened a public interest law firm. In June 1977, she was appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. From 1981 to 1985, Judge Kessler served as Presiding Judge...