Auman was handcuffed in the back of a police car when a man she had known less than a day shot Denver police officer Bruce VanderJagt dead in 1997, but she was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was in jail last year on immigration violations when others committed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for which federal prosecutors want Moussaoui executed.

He's still in jail, awaiting a federal trial in Virginia on charges of conspiring to bring about the attacks that killed thousands.

Auman, 26, is behind bars in a state prison while she appeals her conviction in a case that also has attracted nationwide attention. The Colorado Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in her case Tuesday.

Moussaoui is not a sympathetic figure in most American minds, but Auman may be.

"The instinctive reaction to the Lisl Auman case is, 'That's not fair,' " said Denver attorney David Lane.

Defense lawyers say both Auman and Moussaoui have been unfairly targeted by authorities eager to punish someone for heinous crimes committed by others who put themselves beyond the reach of the law by dying.

The 19 known hijackers died when the four planes they commandeered hit the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

VanderJagt's murderer, Matthaeus Jaehnig, immediately killed himself with the officer's gun.

Both Auman and Moussaoui exemplify a long-standing principle of American law: You don't have to pull the trigger, hijack the plane, be nearby or even intend to kill someone to face the toughest penalties.

"The theory is that even though you're not a hands-on operative, you're still as culpable as the perpetrator," said Denver defense attorney Phil Cherner, president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.

A Denver jury convicted Auman of "felony murder" -- a murder committed during another serious crime or the immediate flight afterward -- on the legal theory that she was responsible for VanderJagt's death because she earlier had arranged a burglary.

Auman enlisted Jaehnig's help in burglarizing her ex-boyfriend's apartment in Pine. When the police showed up, the two fled by car. The police chased them to Denver, where they took Auman into custody. But Jaehnig escaped on foot and shot VanderJagt while Auman sat handcuffed in a police cruiser.

Defense lawyers nationwide see Auman's case as their chance to challenge the felony murder statutes under which people who didn't expect anyone to be killed, and weren't present when they were, have been condemned to death.

"The felony murder doctrine is extremely harsh and frequently unjust," Lane said.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has filed a brief on Auman's side. The Colorado District Attorneys Council has filed one supporting the government.

"What we are concerned with is the integrity of the felony murder statute statewide," said Peter Weir, the council's executive director.

He said the established public policy in Colorado is that "it's appropriate for an individual to be fully accountable for the consequences of all acts that they engage in."

"Once the acts are set in motion, you're responsible for what happens," Weir said.

An unusual assortment of supporters has gathered in Auman's cause, from "gonzo" journalist Hunter Thompson to conservative U.S. Senate candidate Rick Stanley to one of the jurors who convicted her.

But Auman's isn't the usual felony murder murder case.

"The usual felony murder case involves a getaway car driver or a lookout in, say, a liquor store robbery, and somebody gets killed," Lane said. "Everybody involved in the crimes is sort of on the same page."

The defense lawyers say Auman's case is different because the murder was more removed from the original burglary. It was about an hour later, and 30 miles away in another county.

They also say Auman's "immediate flight" after the burglary had ended when police took her into custody.

"I don't know if there's any other case in the country that has taken felony murder this far," Cherner said.

"The question is, how wide do you want to cast the net?" he said. "I think, for Lisl Auman, it's too wide."

But Ken Lane, spokesman for the Colorado attorney general's staff that is resisting Auman's appeal, said that doesn't matter.

"The fact that she was handcuffed in a police car makes for interesting reading, but the fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter where she was," he said.

In their own brief, the government lawyers cited cases in other states, including Kansas, California, Idaho and Florida, where courts ruled that defendants' arrests or attempts to surrender did not absolve them from responsibility for a murder committed by someone else.

David Lane said the U.S. Supreme Court upheld death sentences under the felony murder doctrine for two brothers who helped their father escape from an Arizona prison.

Days later, the three were still on the run but separated. The father and other people who were with him hijacked a car and killed the family traveling in it. The brothers weren't present, but they were convicted of felony murder and sentenced to die.

Denver defense lawyer Nathan Chambers said the Auman case is about how far removed a murder can be from the original crime and still come under the felony murder doctrine. It's about the meaning of "immediate flight" after a crime, he said.

Chambers said the government is arguing in the Auman case that the "immediate flight" from the burglary extended far enough to include VanderJagt's death, and the defense is arguing that it didn't.

"Let's say you and I go rob a bank," Chambers said. "And I get arrested right away, and you get away and you are in flight for three years.

"And three years later, the cops swoop down on you to arrest you and you kill somebody.

"Am I guilty of felony murder?"

Contact Karen Abbott at (303) 892-5188 or abbottk@RockyMountainNews.com.