Moussaoui
 

......A no-win situation. Hopefully, the sentence to obscurity in a closed prison for life will achieve something other than martyrdom, but what?

As far as I can tell, he has become a political prisoner, and sooner or later American citizens will be held hostage by people demanding his release.

There's no clear path to justice in this case because he was convicted on the strength of his own evidence, and it was his intention that he be convicted and executed. Only he knows for certain the strength of his links with Al Quaida, and the show trial offered little in the way of evidence to link him to the emotive cockpit voice recordings that were submitted as 'evidence'.

The whole trial and its outcome make little sense to me. I don't think the prosecution had enough evidence, but the overwhelming pressure for a conviction meant that there had to be a trial. The idea that execution could ever be considered on the strength of the mixture of hearsay and self-implication that was offered as evidence does not sit easy with me. Perhaps someone can explain to me exactly what he was proven to have done, and why so many people want him dead.

Well, if I recall correctly, he pleaded "Guilty" and the only thing the jury had to decide was life in prison or death penalty. I'm just glad I wasn't called to sit on that jury. Those poor bastards had a couple months of their life put on hold for this case.

I'm even more glad I'm not going to be on the jury for the asshole sniper, John Mohammed. He's already been sentenced to death in Virginia, but now Maryland wants to have its shot at him for one of his murders there. What a boondoggle. I would be so pissed at the prosecution if I got called to be on that jury. What a waste of time and taxpayers money. What are they going to do, put him to death twice?

Maybe Maryland is making sure if Virginia screws up and John Mohammed somehow gets to walk, they can nail him. A second conviction would also double the time and cost of appeals for him to beat it.

My opinion....this guy's got to go down. :rar:

So much for the "show trial".

"...So I wish to withdraw my guilty plea and do some other crazy damn thing so you'll all follow your part in the script (see, it says right here) and condemn me to death so that I may be a martyr, and extend my command of empty headlines for another period."

Uh-huh, I'll get right back to you on that.

A new article in the Washington Post gives some behind the scenes of the jury deliberations.

Apparently, 11 of the 12 jurors wanted to put him to death, but one lone holdout ended up forcing everyong else to go for life in prison instead. They were not happy.

not quite a "12 Angry Men", but close, eh?

No doubt those who screech for the law to be applied 'because it's the law' will be delighted that the principles of law have been respected. If there is no unanimous decision, there can be no more killing.
The 'frustration' felt by the 11 jurors who wanted the death penalty is irrelevant.The law does not require any juror to justify his or her position.

As much as simple direct application of the threefold law might have called for Moussoui's execution, a higher justice is served by the memetic value of his very public confession that he'd finally learned that--despite what he'd been taught--the game wasn't fixed after all.

To be of memetic value, his confession would have to be widely available to those who believe Al Quaeda's view of the world, and accepted as the truth by them. Somehow,I don't think the radical elements that are determined to convert Islam into the creed of terrorism will publish Moussaoui's comments, preferring to point out the fact that he is being held incommunicado by the US government, and is therefore unable to verify the statements attributed to him.

Bear in mind that internet penetration in the Middle East barely averages10% of the population.Iraq boasts 0.2% coverage[when there's electricity and telephone services], and if Israel's 45% is removed from the equation, the region's average wouldn't reach double figures. Also, there's no guarrantee that the online community would accept the information from that site more readily than from an Al Quaeda web sourrce.

I didn't say it was a master stroke. But the way it went down, it's probably a better outcome than any likely alternative outcome.

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. (The same principle applies to brains.)