Civil Liberties: John Ashcroft Is Rewriting the 6th Amendment
To steal from Will Rogers, all I know is what I read on the Internet. And what I read on the various news sites is that Zacarias Moussaoui wants to delay his trial. Seems he's having trouble reaching witnesses, being somewhat isolated. He's also having trouble getting access to government evidence because it's classified and he's not cleared. And on and on. The man is somewhat hamstrung in putting together his defense, and his team of advisors would like to have a few months more time before they go into court.
As I see it, there really shouldn't be any big controversy about the delay. After all, there's a life at stake here. So, it makes no sense for the prosecution to be in a rush. Unless the prosecution's intending to run roughshod over the rest of the bill of rights as they propose to do with Article VI.
Reportedly, the prosecution asked that the trial not be delayed, citing a right of the public and victims to a speedy trial. They also cited national interest, but that is extraneous. What bothers me is that they claimed for the "people" a right that is clearly and unequivocal under the sixth amendment protects the accused against those same people acting through their government. The government is using the speedy trial laws, which came into being in the 1970s as an attempt to reinvigorate the sixth amendment, as a tool to subvert that amendment.
As I recall my history, the Bill of Rights was added to protect the people against the federal government. The Bill of Rights reserved powers to the states and rights to the people. In the case of the sixth amendment, the rights belong to a specific class, not collectively but as individuals. The protection goes to the defendant and nobody else. The rights, based on English common law, had suffered abuse from colonial governments, especially in the decades prior to the American Revolution when the British government was having problems getting convictions in smuggling cases in the northern colonies. The solution was to move the trials, but the result was to deny the basic English right to a speedy trial by one's peers. Thus, when the first Congress solicited proposals for the bill of rights, collecting over 200 and weeding down to eight, among the final eight that James Madison put to the states was the sixth.
There is no public right mentioned in the sixth amendment, nor is there mention of victims' rights. What the amendment says is: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."
As I read that language (and it's a lot clearer than the talk about establishment of religion or arms and the militia), the government is flat out wrong in trying to deny Moussaoui his delay. It's arguable that the government has not been fully sixth amendment friendly with regard to venue, charges, and access to witnesses, but it's totally without question that the government has attempted to twist the speedy trial provision to use a right of the accused against Moussaoui. That is not what justice is all about. The judge acted properly in granting Moussaoui's request, and the government added another to its ever-lengthening list of questionable readings of the Constitution.