According to US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, it may be “very difficult for this case to go forward” after prosecution lawyers admitted they had coached prospective witnesses in direct defiance of her order that they be shielded from any advance exposure to trial proceedings. She said she had “never seen such an egregious violation of a rule on witnesses” and considered, at the least, excluding the seven witnesses involved, who prosecutors say are “half of the government case.” She could also bar the government from seeking the death penalty, which would automatically end the trial and impose a sentence of life without parole on Moussaoui (given his guilty plea), pending a likely government appeal. The judge also indicated that she might reconsider a defense motion for a mistrial on an unrelated issue. Brinkema has been courageously independent-minded from the first in the face of US attempts to trample on his defendent rights. Brinkema also put the Church of Scientology in its place in a momentous 1996 decision.