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American Morning

Walker Lindh to Enter Plea Today

Aired February 13, 2002 - 09:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, he arrived at a Virginia federal courthouse early this morning under extremely tight security, and beginning at any moment, John Walker Lindh will be asked to enter his plea.

Let's go to Alexandria, where CNN's Jonathan Aiken is standing by. Good morning again, Jonathan. It is pretty clear at this hour what kind of plea he will enter, isn't it?

JONATHAN AIKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yeah. No surprises here, Paula. It is going to be a straight forward procedure, once the arraignment gets under way in just a few minutes. The charges that will be presented formally to John Walker Lindh, he faces 10 counts from the federal indictment that handed up by a grand jury sitting here at the courthouse last week.

As you said, no surprises. We're expecting not guilty pleas up and down the line. After that, a trial date will be set, and the prosecution and the defense have already agreed to trial date of mid- November for different reasons. The defense wants the time lag to let passions simmer, they are worried about pre-trial publicity.

Federal prosecutors say that isn't so much the issue, but they do agree with the defense, this is going to be a tough case to prepare for. Witnesses have to be deposed, evidence has to be gathered. Material collected in three countries, and probably a war zone. So, that time difference between now and November may end up being a benefit to both sides -- Paula.

ZAHN: Now, the concern, though, is about the timing of this -- it's interesting because we had both a prosecutor and defense attorney on earlier this morning who thought that it was not a good strategy on either camp's part to postpone this thing, because it could run up against the Moussaoui trial in November. How big of a concern is that?

AIKEN: It's some concern. I don't know how much of a concern it is for the folks here in the courthouse who do have experience handling high profile cases. In fact, one of the reasons why this facility was chosen was because of its experience. Not only with high-profile cases, but also terrorism cases.

I can tell you, though, that the people who live around this courthouse, and they paid a lot of money to do so, are not going to be happy with two concurrent federal trials involving terrorism charges taking place in their own backyard. But as for the worries of federal prosecutors, they seem to be willing to accept the time frame for a variety of reasons, mostly logistical.

ZAHN: All right, Jonathan. We're going to come back to you live when that plea is entered. Thank you for that report.

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