Attorney general plans rare appearance before high court

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey will rely on his experience dealing with high-profile terrorism trials when he argues a case before the U.S. Supreme Court later this month.

Officials at the high court have confirmed that the 66-year-old head of the Justice Department will represent the administration on March 25 in its appeal over an al Qaeda operative convicted in what is known as the "millennium bombing plot."

The plot was never carried out.

Mukasey will be the first attorney general to appear before the justices since Janet Reno argued a case in 1996, according to the court. Mukasey's predecessors in the Bush administration, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, never handled those special duties.

Lawyers from the solicitor general's office, now headed by Paul Clement, usually direct appeals before the federal courts.

No reason was given for Mukasey agreeing to take on the extra workload. He is expected to attend several practice sessions, called moot courts, where officials simulate questions that the justices may ask.

Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe Estrada said it had been common practice for attorneys general in prior administrations to regularly appear before the Supreme Court.

The current case involves Ahmed Ressam, who was found guilty of various conspiracy charges in the failed plan to blow up Los Angeles International Airport in the days before New Year's 2000.

He had trained in Afghanistan with al Qaeda members to plant explosives at the airport, but the plan was foiled when customs agents in Washington state discovered explosives in his car as he entered the United States from Canada on a ferry.

The Algerian native was sentenced to a total of 22 years after his 2005 conviction.

At issue is whether he should have been prosecuted for one of the charges, using "fire or an explosive to commit" a related felony, which carried a 10-year prison term. Underlying that charge was that Ressam made "false statements on a customs declaration" when he smuggled weapons across the Canadian-U.S. border.

A federal appeals court concluded the government failed to show the explosives were carried "in relation to" the underlying false statement offense.

The government then took its case to the Supreme Court, arguing that if the appellate ruling was allowed to stand, it would be almost impossible to prosecute terrorism-related cases on that charge.

Criminal law experts say a conviction of making a false statement is a proven way for prosecutors to tie defendants to ongoing, far-reaching, and often amorphous terror plots hatched overseas.

Mukasey is a retired federal judge who worked in New York City. He oversaw trials of several people subsequently convicted of terrorism.

Among them was Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who received a life sentence for his role in the plot to blow up the United Nations and other Manhattan landmarks in the mid-1990s; and Jose Padilla, who was initially charged as an enemy combatant and held for years in U.S. military custody.

Padilla was later convicted in a Florida federal court on lesser conspiracy charges.

The Supreme Court case is U.S. v. Ressam (07-455). E-mail to a friend

All About Terrorism • Michael Mukasey • U.S. Supreme Court