Judge Halts Terror Trial

Martin, an aviation security expert, had served as a liaison between prosecutors and witnesses expected to testify about airport security. She was working with government and defense witnesses and was not a member of the prosecution team. Brinkema told jurors before dismissing them for the day that prosecutors deserved "great credit" for reporting the error to her.

Defense attorneys accused Martin of trying to shape the testimony of key witnesses. "This is not going to be a fair trial anymore . . . because of what a lawyer did in an absolute abrogation of your rules," defense attorney Edward B. MacMahon Jr. said as he urged Brinkema to strike the death penalty.

Brinkema has removed the death penalty once, in 2003, after the government disobeyed her order to allow Moussaoui's attorneys to interview captured al-Qaeda leaders who they said could clear him. Eventually, she was overruled by a higher court.

Fordham Law School professor James Cohen, an expert in witness tampering, said dismissing the death penalty this time "might be too harsh a penalty." Other legal specialists said Brinkema might strike the testimony of the witnesses with whom Martin communicated. Those witnesses, three for the government and four for the defense, are expected to testify about what the government might have done to boost airport security if Moussaoui had confessed his knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot when he was arrested in August 2001.

Even that would be a severe blow to the government because that is the crux of its argument for execution: If Moussaoui had not lied to the FBI, the attacks could have been prevented. Assistant U.S. Attorney David J. Novak said in court yesterday that the testimony of the contacted witnesses constituted "half the evidence in this case."

Prosecutors urged Brinkema last night to throw out neither the death penalty nor the testimony of the seven witnesses, saying defense attorneys can address any problems caused by Martin's e-mails during direct or cross-examination. "Dismissal of the death notice is simply too extreme a sanction and the public should not be deprived of its right to see this trial proceed to verdict," the prosecution filing said. The filing, however, acknowledged that Martin had intended "to better prepare the witnesses for questions by the defense."

Court papers said the government learned of Martin's e-mails when one of the witnesses who received them, Lynne Osmus, approached prosecutors Friday night. Osmus, who is assistant administrator for security and hazardous materials at the Federal Aviation Administration, declined to comment yesterday.

Novak then learned that Martin had also e-mailed the other witnesses. Court documents say they include Robert White, a former FAA liaison to the CIA's Counterterrorism Center who works at the TSA, and Pat McDonnell, the FAA's retired director of aviation security and intelligence.

Martin's e-mails were highly critical of the government's case, especially an assertion by prosecutors that the government could have stopped the Sept. 11 terror attacks if Moussaoui had not lied to the FBI by, among other things, having the FAA focus airport security on short-bladed knives. The Sept. 11 hijackers used such knives to take over four airplanes.

"There is no way anyone could say that the carriers could have prevented all short bladed knives from going through -- Dave [Novak] MUST elicit that from you and the airline witnesses on direct, and not allow the defense to cut your credibility on cross," Martin wrote.

Defense attorneys noted that Martin has been present from the beginning at almost every proceeding in the Moussaoui case, including sensitive hearings.

She was a career FAA attorney who moved to the new Transportation Security Administration in 2002, largely because of her work on the case of the 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, officials familiar with her work said. Martin represented the government at a civil trial in which victims' families sued the airline. She was there to make sure that sensitive information was not discussed in open court.

Several officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said Martin often served as a liaison with Justice Department lawyers in aviation security cases.

Staff writers Karin Brulliard, Sara Kehaulani Goo, Ian Shapira and Mary Beth Sheridan contributed to this report.