Brinkema presided over RTC v.
Lerma et al. (1995), a case that involved the reproduction of materials owned by the
Church of Scientology. Brinkema found for the defendants in most of the claims, and awarded minimum damages of $2,500 for
copyright infringement, citing the "increasingly vitriolic rhetoric" of Religious Technology Center (RTC)'s legal filings.
In 2006, Brinkema presided over the case of
9/11 conspirator
Zacarias Moussaoui.[5] When she asked about the
videotapes showing the interrogation of
Abu Zubaydah, the government denied their existence.[6] As she sentenced Moussaoui to life in a
supermax prison, she told him: "You came here to be a martyr and to die in a great big bang of glory, but to paraphrase the poet
T. S. Eliot, instead, you will die with a whimper. The rest of your life you will spend in prison." Mr. Moussaoui began to respond, but Judge Brinkema continued. "You will never again get a chance to speak," she said, "and that is an appropriate and fair ending."[7]
On April 2, 2009, Brinkema weighed in on the question of whether terrorist detainees at the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp could be prosecuted in the civilian justice system.[8]
In 2011, she presided over the fraud trial of Lee Farkas,
CEO of
Taylor, Bean & Whitaker. During his sentencing hearing on June 30, 2011, she said that she did not observe any genuine remorse, and sentenced the 58-year-old Farkas to 30 years in
federal prison.[9] She ordered Farkas and six others to pay a total of about $US3.5 billion in
restitution.[10]
On January 28, 2017, she was the second to order a
stay of an
executive order by President
Donald Trump, which restricted immigration into the United States and prevented the return of
green-card holders and others. Although the order issued was a
temporary restraining order, it blocked the removal of any green-card holders being detained at Dulles International Airport for seven days. Brinkema's action also ordered that lawyers have access to those held there because of the president's ban.[11]