On August 4, 2005, Keith Weissman and Steven J. Rosen, two employees of AIPAC, were indicted for receiving classified information and then passing it along to reporters and to the officials of a foreign government, namely, the state of Israel. Up until a few weeks ago, their trial was set to commence this coming Monday, June 4. It has now been delayed, for the umpteenth time, to an unspecified date this fall.
The Sixth Amendment to our Constitution states that in “all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.” But Weissman and Rosen have been dangling in legal limbo for nearly two years, and an end to their ordeal is not yet in sight. Much, if not almost all, of the delay can be laid at the feet of the prosecutors, who repeatedly have been caught unprepared by decisions of the court.
In the most recent instance, T.S. Ellis III, one of the most thoughtful and scholarly judges sitting on the federal bench, rejected the prosecution’s proposal for handling classified evidence during the trial, which would have required all participants in the courtroom (save the public) to talk about it using a complex code. Among other criticisms leveled by Ellis was that this “would make it virtually impossible for defendants to conduct effective cross-examination of witnesses.”
