 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Criminal No. 01-455-A
Reserved courtroom seating for members of the media
In December 2005, the court granted the applications of all 29 news organizations and sketch artists which asked for reserved courtroom seats during the trial. If they do not attend the trial daily beginning with opening statements, they may forfeit their reserved seats for the remainder of the proceedings. Attendance will be taken before the start of every trial day. Court-issued credentials for the reserved seats must be picked up at the Clerk’s Office, Second Floor, U.S. District Court, 401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, Virginia on Friday, March 3, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Each news organization has one reserved seat; additional employees of these news organizations can receive daily seating credentials, as described below. A list of news organizations with reserved seats for the trial is located here. No additional applications are being accepted.
Trial schedule and seating arrangements
Journalists and members of the public without reserved seats will need a daily seating credential to attend the trial. Daily seating credentials will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis at the courtroom doors on the 7th floor for 90 minutes prior to the start of each trial day. No credentials will be issued after the start of the day’s proceedings.
In addition to Courtroom 700, where the proceedings will take place, the trial will be screened on closed-circuit television in Courtroom 701. The two courtrooms seat approximately 160 spectators; more than half those seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. The closed-circuit feed shows a wide shot of the well of Courtroom 700 as seen from the spectator gallery; the camera does not move. The judge’s face and the backs of the attorneys and the defendant are visible. The jury box is not shown.
Opening statements are scheduled to begin on Monday, March 6 at 2:00 p.m. Seating will begin at approximately 12:30 p.m. The 7th floor will be cleared prior to the time seating begins. More information about seating procedures for opening statements is located here.
Beginning on March 7, the trial will be held Monday through Thursday of each week; court may also occasionally be held on Fridays. The jury will listen to testimony from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day. There will be a lunch break from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and 20-minute recesses at approximately 11:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. To the extent possible, any hearings that must be held outside the presence of the jury, such as motions on the admissibility of evidence, will be held before or after the normal trial day. During the trial, the schedule will be updated each evening on the main page of the U.S. v. Moussaoui section of the court’s website.
Spectators who have seating credentials will be allowed to enter and leave the courtrooms while the proceedings are taking place, so long as they do not become a distraction. Spectators are not allowed to eat, drink, chew gum or read newspapers in the courtroom. Talking during the proceedings is prohibited.
Because of limited space, coats, briefcases, backpacks and large handbags are not permitted in the courtroom. Coat racks are available in the corridor for these items. The court is not responsible for lost or damaged personal belongings.
Under no circumstances should spectators enter the well of the courtroom, which is marked by a short rail in front of the first spectator bench.
Restrooms and water fountains are available on every floor of the courthouse. There are five pay telephones located on the 2nd floor. Smoking is prohibited throughout the courthouse. The courthouse is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
So that spectators can be present when the verdict is read, the courtrooms will remain open while the jury is deliberating. Daily seating credentials will continue to be distributed ONLY prior to the beginning of the jury’s deliberations on a given day.
The parties determine when they will call a particular witness. They generally do not inform the court of which witnesses they plan to call on a particular day. Their lists of witnesses they may call during the trial are sealed.
The trial will not be broadcast to the public; in January 2002, the court denied a motion by Court TV and C-SPAN to televise the proceedings. Victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the families of deceased victims who have received credentials from the court may view the trial on closed-circuit television feeds in federal courthouses in Boston, MA; Central Islip, NY; Newark, NJ; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and in a separate courtroom in Alexandria, VA. The law that created victim viewing locations requires that these courtrooms be for the exclusive use of victims and their families.
Jury selection schedule and seating arrangements
Because of the intense media and public interest in this case, on February 2, 2006, the court issued an order that the jurors will be anonymous. To protect their anonymity, the order also:
Anyone who violates the order may be subject to criminal prosecution. Any journalist who violates the order will also lose their courtroom seating credentials, as will all employees of his or her news organization, for the duration of the trial, according to the order.
Jury selection will occur in three phases:
On Monday, February 6, approximately 500 prospective jurors reported to the courthouse. The attorneys and the defendant were present; the judge briefly described the case to the prospective jurors, who then completed questionnaires about their backgrounds.
Four sessions were held: 10:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Because the prospective jurors filled the spectator galleries, this day’s proceedings were closed to the public, and were attended exclusively by pool reporters.
Two pool reporters -- one representing TV/radio, and a second representing print/online -- covered each session. After each session, but before they filed their own reports, the two pool reporters briefed the media gathered on Courthouse Square. After the 10:00 a.m. session, blank copies of the questionnaires were distributed to the media on Courthouse Square. The completed questionnaires are sealed.
Reserved courtroom seating credentials, which have been granted to all 29 news organizations that requested them, are not valid for jury selection; they become usable at opening statements on March 6.
On Wednesday, February 15 at 9:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., groups of a dozen prospective jurors will return to the courthouse to be questioned individually by the judge in Courtroom 700 about some of their answers on the questionnaire. These sessions, which are known as individual voir dire, will continue for two to three weeks, until 85 prospective jurors have been qualified. Sessions will be held full days Monday through Thursday, and Friday afternoons beginning at 1:00 p.m. The voir dire and trial schedules will be updated daily on the main page of the U.S. v. Moussaoui section of the court’s website.
Individual voir dire is open to the public and the media. No court-issued credentials are required to attend these sessions, and no media organizations have reserved seats for individual voir dire. In addition to Courtroom 700, a closed-circuit video feed of individual voir dire proceedings will be screened in Courtroom 701. The two courtrooms seat approximately 160 spectators.
On Monday, March 6 at 10:00 a.m., the pool of 85 prospective jurors is scheduled to return to Courtroom 700 for final jury selection. Each party may exercise up to 30 peremptory challenges to strike prospective jurors from the panel; the lawyers do not describe their reasons for the strikes. A jury of 18 individuals, including six alternates, will be selected.
Because prospective jurors will fill the spectator gallery of Courtroom 700, this proceeding will be screened for the public and the media on the closed-circuit video feed in Courtroom 701, which seats 80 spectators. No media organizations have reserved seats for this proceeding.
Court-issued credentials are required, and they will be distributed on the 7th floor from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on a first-come, first-served basis. Two pool reporters will be seated in Courtroom 700. Contact the pool coordinators listed above if you want to serve as a pool reporter. There are no additional seats in Courtroom 700 for sketch artists; if they want to sit in that courtroom, they must be designated as a pool reporter . More information about seating procedures on this day is located here.
Courthouse security, directions and parking
The following streets near the courthouse will be closed to vehicular traffic on days the trial is being held, from approximately 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.:
A map of these closures is located here.
The court's website includes directions to the courthouse and a map of the closest parking garages. All of the garages are outside the zone of closed streets.
Everyone attending the trial will be required to pass through two security checkpoints: at the entrance to the courthouse and at the entrance to the courtrooms. You will be asked to present a photo I.D. issued by a government agency when entering the building. Please allow plenty of time to pass through security.
You will not be allowed to enter the courthouse with cellular telephones, Palm Pilots, Blackberry e-mail devices, pagers, cameras, tape recorders, laptop computers or any other electronic device. The court has no facilities to store these items.
Potential weapons such as firearms, knives, pocket knives, scissors, letter openers, screw drivers, mace and pepper spray are also prohibited.
A very small press room on the courthouse's third floor houses three news organizations which have occupied the space for several years. The room is full and no additional space for a press room is available in the building. In 2002, the City of Alexandria planned to create a media center for this trial on a vacant lot adjacent to the courthouse. Those plans have since been shelved because a developer is now constructing a hotel/condo on the lot.
Some reporters covering this case have filed from hotel rooms; a list of nearby hotels is available on this page of the court's website.
Simpson Development, which owns an office building located directly behind the courthouse at 2320 Mill Road, has space for lease to news organizations on a short-term basis. Leasing director Fred Zamer can be contacted at 703-299-0029. The court will have no involvement in any leasing arrangements.
Cell phones and other personal electronic devices are prohibited in the courthouse, and the court has no facilities to store these devices. There are five pay telephones located on the 2nd floor.
At some hearings, such as the first day of jury selection, for logistical reasons seating will be limited to two pool reporters – one representing print and online news organizations, and a second representing television and radio organizations. After the hearings but prior to filing their own reports, they will brief reporters gathered on Courthouse Square.
Representatives of two news organizations have volunteered to coordinate this pool coverage on behalf of the media. Stuart Powell, (202-263-6421), White House correspondent for Hearst Newspapers, is the contact person for print and online news organizations. David Futrowsky (202-824-6308), Fox News Channel's Washington Bureau director of field operations, is the contact person for TV and radio news organizations. They serve as representatives of the media; they do not work for the court. Contact them if you want to serve as a pool correspondent.
TV standup locations and transmission trucks
Television stand-up locations and a newsmaker microphone stand are located on the east side of Courthouse Square, as shown in this map. David Futrowsky, the electronic media’s pool coordinator and Fox News Channel's Washington Bureau director of field operations, has allocated part of the space designated by the U.S. Marshals Service and the Alexandria Police Department for stand-up locations to television news organizations which intend to cover the trial daily. Additional space is available on a first-come, first-served basis for organizations covering only part of the trial. Individual generators are prohibited. A pool generator, providing two 20-amp circuits for each news organization, has been provided by the broadcast and cable news networks, who set the fees for its use.
Television satellite and microwave trucks must park in the curbside traffic lane on the north side of Eisenhower Avenue between Elizabeth Lane and John Carlyle Street, as shown in this map. To broadcast live from Courthouse Square, television news organizations must lay cable from the Square to their truck locations, and must use the network-provided yellowjacket cable troughs where the cable run crosses the street or the entrance to the public garage. The cable run ranges in length from 740 to 1,800 feet. News organizations can lay and remove cable during the course of the trial.
The broadcast and cable news networks have formed a pool to cover the arrival and departure of the defendant. Other still and video camera operators can join the pool camera operator behind police barricades across Jamieson Avenue from the courthouse. Alexandria Police Department officers will direct you to this location, from which you cannot broadcast live. The defendant is not visible from the street when he is transported to and from the courthouse. His arrival and departure times are not announced.
Reporters -- both print and electronic -- are prohibited from conducting interviews of anyone in the courthouse. Lawyers, relatives of the defendant, victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and others involved in or attending the proceedings have routinely made themselves available to the media on Courthouse Square.
The media may not interview:
Classified hearings and information
This case involves some information that the executive branch of the United States government has deemed classified, which means the disclosure of that information would be harmful to the national security.
Pretrial hearings involving the use of classified information at trial are held pursuant to the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) with counsel for both sides present. The defendant, the public and the media may not attend these hearings.
Documents filed in this case containing classified information are redacted. Pleadings, orders and opinions which may contain classified information are submitted to the executive branch for review prior to their public release. If they contain classified material, officials in the executive branch redact that information from the public version of the documents that appear on the docket page. The court does not determine what information is redacted from the public filings.
More information about procedures for handling classified information in this case is contained in the court's January 22, 2002 order.
The official court reporter, Anneliese J. Thomson, has arranged for transcripts to be purchased during the trial through Exemplaris (888-584-9988, ext. 2) on the Web or delivered via e-mail. The Exemplaris website requires the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher.
On February 14, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema ordered that none of the exhibits entered into evidence during the trial would be made available for public review until the trial proceedings are completed, at which time requests for these materials would be considered.
On March 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit partially vacated that order, finding that exhibits that have been entered into evidence and shown in full to the jury must be made public by 10:00 a.m. the following day.
The Fourth Circuit endorsed a procedure suggested by the parties who sought access to the exhibits – that a single copy of each exhibit be provided by the court or the parties to a representative of the media. Media organizations, in turn, would use this single copy to make their own copies.
On March 22, Judge Brinkema adopted that procedure, placing the burden on the parties to produce one copy of each exhibit that had been shown in full to the jury. The court’s public information officer will forward the prior day’s exhibits to representatives of the media each day at 10:00 a.m.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the televison networks have agreed to be those representatives.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which was a party to the suit, has agreed to post exhibits which are in the form of documents or photographs on its website: www.rcfp.org/moussaoui. Members of the news media who would like to receive an e-mail message when new exhibits are available should submit their e-mail addresses to gleslie [at] rcfp.org, and include their media affiliation in the message.
Exhibits which are in the form of video or audio tapes will be distributed by the network television pool producer on duty at the Alexandria U.S. District Courthouse – a role the broadcast and cable networks rotate on a daily basis. Media organizations should rely on their normal business relationships with the television networks for copies of these exhibits.
To provide all members of the media with an opportunity to simultaneously report the verdict, the court will employ the following procedures when a verdict is reached:
During this trial, some reporters, out of an understandable desire to report the news as quickly as possible, have raced from the courtrooms at dangerous speeds. These procedures are designed to reduce the need to do so. In the interest of safety, please walk, don’t run, while in the courthouse.
The court sends an e-mail message whenever a pleading, order or opinion (except those filed under seal) is added to the U.S. v. Moussaoui docket page. A separate e-mail service provides media advisories issued about this and other high-profile cases in the Eastern District of Virginia. Instructions for signing up for both services are on the e-mail alerts page.
Federal criminal case procedures
A Journalist's Guide to the Federal Courts and Understanding the Federal Courts, which are published by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, describe the structure of the federal judiciary and the procedures that govern criminal cases.
Contact for additional questions
Contact the court's public information officer, Edward A. Adams, at 703-299-2172 or Edward_Adams@vaed.uscourts.gov.
|
