9/11 Lawsuits - Can They Be Won?

January 28, 2005—The evidence that certain elements of the government intentionally allowed and caused the 9-11 tragedy appears to be extremely strong. See, for example, Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid (view free video), Synthetic Terror by Webster Tarpley, and The New Pearl Harbor and The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions by David Ray Griffin.

After failing to obtain any competent investigation or tangible results from the 9/11 Commission, the White House, or Congress (many of the governmental personnel responsible for preventing an attack on the U.S. have actually been promoted since 9-11), many Americans are asking whether justice may be obtained through the courts. The answer is complicated, and it would be impossible for a brief article such as this to do anything other than scratch the surface concerning 9-11 justice.

Instead of being the final word on 9-11 legal issues, this article is intended to be an introduction to strategy regarding 9-11 lawsuits, and a practical discussion of how to avoid some of the landmines present on the path to the courtroom battlefield which could knock the unwary out of the game before they even get started.

Can We Win a 9-11 Lawsuit?

Legally, I believe we should win in court. If the facts surrounding the 9-11attacks were applied to the elements of the law in a vacuum, then I believe that many of the real 9-11 perpetrators and accomplices would end up behind bars. There is strong evidence from numerous sources that the 9-11 attacks could not have occurred without the assistance of people in our government. Under theories of murder, criminal negligence, conspiracy, treason and other doctrines, the perpetrators should be found guilty and brought to justice.

However, in any 9-11 lawsuit, the government and its employees would claim that they are protected by sovereign immunity defenses (meaning, in essence, "I'm the king, so you can't sue me"). This area of law is too complicated to discuss here, but I believe we might be able to overcome sovereign immunity defenses for at least some claims, since acts of murderous treason should not be considered within the normal scope of government employment. However, as discussed below, sovereign immunity has already been used to dismiss one 9-11 case, and it is an issue which must be taken very seriously by anyone filing a 9-11 lawsuit.

Moreover, it is unlikely that a court would allow high-level officials such as a sitting president or vice president to be tried until they leave office after the end of their designated term or through impeachment and removal. This is because the constitutional "separation of powers" doctrine provides that one branch of government, such as the judiciary, cannot unduly interfere with the workings of another branch, such as the executive branch. It is clear that, pursuant to federal statutes, a sitting president cannot be tried criminally, although it has not been decided whether the president can be indicted (the first step in the criminal process) while in office or whether the vice president has the same protections as the president. Thus, even if a court did not dismiss a lawsuit outright on sovereign immunity grounds, it would almost certainly stay (i.e. pause) any lawsuit against the president and vice president.

Finally, the government would argue in defense to a 9-11 lawsuit that everything that happened on 9-11 involves a "political question" or "national security interests" of the United States which supersede other considerations. Believe it or not, the government would likely argue that the executive branch is responsible for making war and protecting the country, and that the courts cannot question what the White House and Pentagon do in the realm of defense and military action. While this may sound odd, and while it would obviously be absurd for the government to argue that the 9-11 attack itself was in the national security interest, the courts tend to defer to the executive branch on military and defense issues. Judges' brains often shut off when confronted by a claim by the military that something was necessary for national security or military purposes. Thus, a 9-11 lawsuit should argue that only rogue elements in the U.S. government and military participated in the 9-11 attacks, and that such actions were against the national security interests of the United States and have weakened our country.

What Should a 9-11 Complaint Include?

Sometimes, less is more. Some of the complaints in 9-11 lawsuits have included claims that the Iraq war is illegal, that the USA PATRIOT Act and related laws are fascist, that President Bush was elected through vote fraud, and a host of other claims. I personally agree that 9-11 was probably committed as a new Pearl Harbor type event in order to justify imperial ambitions.

However, the vast majority of judges will immediately write off as bogus any complaint which contains too many different conspiracy claims. The reason is that every judge has reviewed a complaint written by someone who is literally psychotic which claims that everyone is out to get them and everyone has hurt them in some way. When I worked for a court of appeal judge, I read complaints written by defendants in cocaine possession cases who tried to blame everything on everyone else, and, ungrounded in any real facts, alleged that everyone was out to get them. Understandably, after seeing a couple complaints like this, judges tend to automatically close their minds to any lawsuit alleging too many conspiracies or conspirators. Therefore, any 9-11 suit which attempts to weave in too many different crimes, such as an unlawful war, unlawful seizure of centralized power by the government, voting rights fraud, etc., will probably fail.

But some 9-11 complaints have gone too far the other way, by failing to include some of the most important facts related to 9-11. For example, some of the complaints solely allege that the defendants were negligent in allowing 9-11 to happen, while completely ignoring the physical and documentary evidence showing that the 9-11 attacks could not possibly have happened in the manner that the government has described and could not have happened without direct assistance from certain governmental personnel. Failing to mention such evidence gives a court the easy way out by allowing it to decide that the government was careless, but not criminally so. This is the "mistakes were made, but who could have foreseen 9-11?" tack which the 9-11 Commission took, which lets everyone off of the hook without punishment.

Moreover, any complaint which fails to mention Operation Northwoods and the Reichstag fire might miss an opportunity to provide the historical background and context which a court probably needs to fully understand 9-11. In Operation Northwoods, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed committing terrorist acts against U.S. citizens in order to blame Cuba and serve as a rationale for invading that country. In the Reichstag fire, Nazis set fire to the German parliament building and blamed the Communists, in order to justify Adolph Hitler's imperial wars against foreign nations.

Criminal law largely focuses on attempting to prove motive for committing the crime and the means of, and opportunity for, performing the criminal act. Operation Northwoods and the Reichstag fire are historically powerful examples of the type of motive which appear to be behind complicity within certain elements of the U.S. government in the 9-11 attacks. Specifically, a rationale for the invasion of Iraq, seizure of middle eastern oil, and a new imperial presidency may have been some of the motives for the 9-11 attack, and a judge needs some education on this basic concept.

The bottom line is that mentioning Iraq, voting fraud or oppressive new laws as additional offenses will likely cause a complaint to be tossed into the trash can—this is the "everything including the kitchen sink" type of complaint that a judge will assume is worthless. But mentioning such facts as part of the motive for why 9-11 was committed, if explained in a logical and understated fashion, might be helpful in providing background for the case. In other words, it might be advisable to tell the judge why the perpetrators committed the 9-11 attacks, but not to give the judge a catalogue of crimes that they committed in addition to 9-11.

What's Happened So Far?

Several people have recently submitted a complaint to New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer is a dedicated activist when it comes to fighting corporate crime. However, he is running for governor, and political considerations might lessen the chance that he would pursue a 9-11 case. While fairly well-written, the Spitzer complaint includes somewhat contradictory theories about who was behind 9-11. To view the Spitzer complaint and donate to the groups behind that effort, go to Justice for 9/11.

Ellen Mariani, the widow of a 9-11 victim, filed a case based on a civil conspiracy theory. After she was removed as administrator of her late husband's estate, former world trade center employee and 9-11 hero William Rodriguez stepped in as lead plaintiff in the suit. While passionate and well-written, the complaint may—as discussed above—suffer from inclusion of too many conspiracy theories, such as election fraud. To view the Rodriguez complaint or donate to the legal effort, go to 911fortheTruth.org.

There are also numerous 9-11 related personal injury and insurance lawsuits, although they do not appear to directly address who was actually responsible for the attacks.

To my knowledge, no attorney has yet filed a class action case based upon 9-11. Not many trial lawyers handle class actions, since it takes a lot of work to get the plaintiffs certified as a class and to take the other necessary steps which are not required in other types of civil lawsuits. Also, class actions take a special type of expertise which many trial lawyers don't have.

End Part I