Moussaoui expected to plead guilty to 9/11 role News
Moussaoui expected to plead guilty to 9/11 role

[JURIST] Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] has notified the government that he will plead guilty to his alleged role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks if a judge finds him mentally competent, the Washington Post reported Tuesday [Post report, registration required]. Moussaoui, a French citizen and the only person charged in the US in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, indicated his intent to plead guilty over his attorney's objections, but his mental competence remains a question. He tried to plead guilty to the same charges in 2002, but rescinded the plea a week later. He is expected to meet with US District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema later this week to determine his mental condition. The plea suggestion comes as the long-delayed trial against Moussaoui appeared to be moving forward [JURIST report]. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has more on the case against Moussaoui [docket]. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.