Jury decides against execution. Seems like the right decision to me. Opportunist that he is, Moussaoui shouted “America, You Lost!” when being led from the courtroom, which is meaningless but may have its intended effect on those who wanted to see him executed. I’m sure he had an equally snappy alternative ready — perhaps something about martyrdom, or maybe just the same line, come to think of it — in case the decision had gone the other way.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 34 comments }
Urinated State of America 05.03.06 at 6:28 pm
Good for the jury for not giving Moussaoui what he wanted.
No martyrdom for him, no 72 virgins. Just rotting in a cell for the rest of his life. Sometimes the best revenge is staying the hand.
greensmile 05.03.06 at 8:41 pm
if only we had reached this verdict to not kill the guilty before we reached the verdict that it would be ok to kill 10’s of thousands of Arabs who were NOT guilty of some atrocity against Americans! The moral high ground will take much more to reclaim than humane verdict.
And yes, there are reasons to suspect the camp from which Moussaoui hales would have appreciated the gift of another martyrdom. The Bushies gained enormous political ammo out of our American dead…a shame they shot it all in the wrong direction. Grievences are the main gift adversaries give each other…else the bastards would have to carry on theif fighting with nothing to sooth their consciences or serve as pretext for their beligerance.
r4d20 05.03.06 at 10:16 pm
You are right – the fish have gone for the bait. Rightwing blogs have decided that our failure to execute him is a critical mistake that only convinces the terrorists we are weak.
This man means NOTHING – his life or death will not make a lick of difference. I think he deserved to die but I never shed tears when a man DOESN’T get the Death Penalty – I can settle for him in a cage forever. But I guess everything looks big and scary to these frightened rabbits.
jet 05.03.06 at 10:35 pm
The verdict would have been easier to swallow if the jurors wouldn’t have been hypocritical in their reasoning. He was guilty of all the damage and woundings, but not the murders? WTF?
And sitting in a federal prison with access to books, tv, perhaps the internet is too good for him. And I’m sure some nut lawyer will make sure he gets his messages out.
r4d20 05.03.06 at 10:52 pm
“And I’m sure some nut lawyer will make sure he gets his messages out.”
He’s a peon who messed up and missed the mission. I’m sure million of would-be jihadis are just waiting to hear his words of wisdom *eyeroll*.
A person this un-terrifying should not be dignifieed with the term ‘terrorist’, let alone generate this much hot air.
Mark 05.03.06 at 11:37 pm
He’s likely going to be sent to Marion where he will sit in a cell for 23 hours every day.
Access to books is what’s in the slammer library–law books, crappy how-tos and pop fiction. Wow access to TV! That’s five or six hours of entertainment a week!
The bastard is going to spend the rest of his life in a cage. Eating institutional food. Having contact only with the morons who are forced to take jobs as prison guards. No vacation. No weekends. No break from the stench, the noise and same four walls.
Sounds like he got what deserved.
Oh. He’ll be completely forgotten about in three or four years. I think we beat the bastards out of a martyr.
Henry (not the famous one) 05.04.06 at 12:54 am
Here’s some red meat for the right blogosphere: even life in something like perpetual solitary confinement is disproportionately harsh. Moussaoui was convicted for thought crimes: he was too inept to remain a suicide bomber, appears to have had no real operational connection to the conspiracy that did succeed once he got to the U.S., and might not have been convicted of the serious charges against him if he hadn’t pled guilty.
I’m certain, on the other hand, that he would have been found guilty of something. And I would not want to see him out of custody, free to circulate with other jihadis, in the next ten years or so. But the prosecution’s insistence on painting this loser as a monster means that it will be hard to ever release him, regardless of how little threat he actually poses, because that would require treating him as a human being, not an agent of evil. A repulsive human being, but a human being nonetheless.
abb1 05.04.06 at 1:19 am
I’m certain, on the other hand, that he would have been found guilty of something.
Not necessarily. The guy clearly is insane (in the layman’s sense, at least) and not guilty; so if the judicial works like it should, he would’ve been found ‘not guilty’. And it’s quite possible, because you only need one juror to see it. I think the judge who accepted the guilty plea made a mistake.
Cian 05.04.06 at 3:17 am
He might well be inssane in the clinical sense as well. He’s like that shoe bomber. A mentally unstable, not very bright, loser, who somehow got mixed up in this.
a 05.04.06 at 5:57 am
“…with the morons who are forced to take jobs as prison guards…”
WTF? You’d also write, I guess, “…morons who are poor…”. Shame on you.
sfb 05.04.06 at 9:07 am
I can’t say I feel much sympathy for Moussaoui. Personally, I’d much rather feel for his left ear on the gallows than see him in prison. The jurors say otherwise.
But I would like to suggest that we make sure the bastard really gets value for his life sentence. No Koran, no books, no TV, no radio. Just a bare cell with a hard bunk and a commode, and institutional food three times a day. Leave the light on 24 hours out of 24. If he can get some sort of good out of contemplating why he’s rotting in his cell for his natural life, fine.
Unfortunately, the people Mark Twain so aptly described over a century ago, the ones ‘…with the permanently impaired and leaky water works . . ‘ who oppose execution, will probably feel a hard bed in a small cell and no books or TV is cruel and inhuman. If it is, that’s fine. Because the punishment will then begin to fit the crime. Then this worthless piece of excrement in human form may receive a portion of what he deserves.
SFB
Anderson 05.04.06 at 9:20 am
Access to books is what’s in the slammer library—law books, crappy how-tos and pop fiction.
I dunno … see this letter to the New York Review of Books (July 14, 2005):
Maybe the Supermax just has one hell of an interlibrary loan program.
Steve 05.04.06 at 9:21 am
Why do anti-death penalty proponents always make such ridiculous arguments?
Life in prison is worse than the death penalty?
No sane person on the planet would choose death over life in prison. Institutional food isn’t that bad. Not taking vacations, or having the weekend off (jesus christ!) isn’t that bad. Talking to prison guards isn’t that bad (perhaps you should try doing it some time). If you don’t believe in the death penalty, just say so. But don’t piss in the wind and tell me its raining.
Steve
john m. 05.04.06 at 9:40 am
There are two broad reasons to apply the death penalty: deterrence or vengeance. In this case, anyone proposing the death penalty on the basis of deterrence is welcome to make a case citing any precedent whatsoever of a terrorist movement being clearly deterred by the application the death sentence following an open and fair judicial process. The acceptability of doing so on the basis of vengeance (or retribution or call it what you will) is a matter of personal morality.
MDP 05.04.06 at 10:57 am
John M., perhaps executing a terrorist who kills deters potential murderers in general. Why should we consider only the effect on other terrorists?
john m. 05.04.06 at 11:08 am
#15 Feel free to cite statistical evidence for the death penalty deterring murderers in general. Originally I was going to make this comparison but felt it was more precise to confine the application of the death penalty for the purposes of deterrence in this case to be to deter other people who had the same motivation for their crime.
Anthony 05.04.06 at 11:14 am
One hopes, at least, that institutional food contains a diet whose meat portions include lots of pork. Perhaps, in this case, instead of solitary, we could put him to forced labor tending pigs, instead. There would be lots of noise about the inhumanity of it, but it would die down in months, and Moussaoui would get to spend the rest of his life violating the tenets of his religion.
Jim Harrison 05.04.06 at 11:26 am
This whole farce had very little to do with Moussaoui, who was and is a cypher. 9/11 took place because of the incompetence of the administration and not because Moussaoui didn’t alert them to the attack–the FBI managed to ignore several other warnings, after all. The theory of the crime was absurd, and a judge with any integrity would have thrown out the case and sent Moussaoui to prison for the rest of his life for the offense he actually committed.
9/11 was both forseeable and preventable. Murdering some lunatic after the fact could only have a way for the government to disavow responsibility for its own criminal negligence.
Peter 05.04.06 at 12:05 pm
The administration has been wanting the throw the death penalty phase. Witness tampering, perjury. Only the ravings of Moussaoui would have sufficed to give him a visit with “old sharpy.” The jury gave the administration what they wanted: life, not execution.
C.J.Colucci 05.04.06 at 12:16 pm
An awful lot of ugliness here. Remember, we’re supposed to be the good guys. if anything, America won yesterday.
Sebastian Holsclaw 05.04.06 at 12:54 pm
In related news it appears that France now wants him back. Le Monde. Anyone want to guess how long a “life sentence” would last for him there?
john m. 05.04.06 at 1:13 pm
#21 Anyone want to guess how long a “life sentence†would last for him there?
For a crime of this severity, 30 years before being reexamined by a parole commission. Not a guess. Why do you ask? Are you aware of the general severity of the French penal system or are you just taking a cheap shot at the French without having the faintest clue what you are talking about?
Sebastian Holsclaw 05.04.06 at 2:09 pm
Actually on further investigation it appears that the French government has not yet made the request and is considering it. So I’ll hold back on being unhappy with them until then.
As for French intentions and law upon successful extradition, the “Rainbow Warrior” incident for example (in which France pre-released the killers despite their specific agreement with the NZ government) doesn’t make me feel wonderful about the whole thing.
Cian 05.04.06 at 4:14 pm
I doubt the US would have been any better in a similar situation.
nick s 05.04.06 at 5:16 pm
As for French intentions and law upon successful extradition, the “Rainbow Warrior†incident for example (in which France pre-released the killers despite their specific agreement with the NZ government) doesn’t make me feel wonderful about the whole thing.
There are a fair few Central American and Caribbean murderers enjoying the Florida sun right now, too. Makes me feel all warm inside.
As for this, a cynic would argue that having Z.M. jailed for life makes it easier to ‘justify’ the military detention of both confessed plotters and unconnected random pickups to the bloodthirsty crowd.
abb1 05.05.06 at 1:06 am
…Central American and Caribbean murderers enjoying the Florida sun
and, I understand, at least one of them actually did blow up an airplane with passengers, not just thought it would be a cool thing to do.
justin 05.05.06 at 6:32 am
The jury gave administration what they wanted,life not execution. But life in prison is some what better than death. The food is not that good. the gaurds r good to talk sometime. But any sane person would choose prison than death penalty.
abb1 05.05.06 at 7:10 am
Think about it – hot showers and prayer mats! Clearly, life in prison is underrated.
MDP 05.05.06 at 9:00 am
John M.: Feel free to cite statistical evidence for the death penalty deterring murderers in general.
Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd, “Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Post-moratorium Panel Dataâ€
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=386300
Rubin mentions related studies here:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1745&wit_id=4991
Including this critique:
John J. Donohue and Justin Wolfers, “Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate†(pdf)
http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=berkeley_law_econ
(hyperlinks appeared fubar in preview, so i typed out the urls.)
john m. 05.05.06 at 9:44 am
mdp – interesting data but did you mean to include the last one?
From the summary: “We find that the existing evidence for deterrence is surprisingly fragile, and even small changes in specifications yield dramatically different results. Our key insight is that the death penalty—at least as it has been implemented in the United States since Gregg ended the moratorium on executions—is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly, have caused or deterred cannot be reliably disentangled from the large year-to year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors. Our estimates suggest not just “reasonable doubt†about whether there is any deterrent effect of the death penalty, but profound uncertainty. We are confident that the effects are not large, but we remain unsure even of whether they are positive or negative. The difficulty is not just one of statistical significance: whether one measures positive or negative effects of the death penalty is extremely sensitive to very small changes in econometric specifications. Moreover, we are pessimistic that existing data can resolve this uncertainty.”
Addtionally, naturally all the studies are confined to the US – none examine the effect on murder rates when the death penalty is abolished in a country, for example the UK. Addtionally, they all reference motive whihc I think it is fair to say is entirely different where Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is involved.
john m. 05.05.06 at 9:55 am
Just becuase it’s Friday, a bit more on motive…
Suicide Bomber A: “I’m just going to strap these explosives to myself and go kill a busload of innocent people”
Bomber B: “But if they catch you they’ll kill you!”
Bomber A “Which bit of suicide bomber is confusing you?”
It does highlight one of the few questions on which I think everybody is agreed: “What the fuck is wrong with these people?”
Sebastian Holsclaw 05.05.06 at 12:00 pm
“Our key insight is that the death penalty—at least as it has been implemented in the United States since Gregg ended the moratorium on executions—is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly, have caused or deterred cannot be reliably disentangled from the large year-to year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors. Our estimates suggest not just “reasonable doubt†about whether there is any deterrent effect of the death penalty, but profound uncertainty. We are confident that the effects are not large, but we remain unsure even of whether they are positive or negative.”
This is rather unshocking considering how rarely the death penalty is employed. Perhaps we need to use it more for greater effect? ;)
Kevin Donoghue 05.05.06 at 12:13 pm
“What the fuck is wrong with these people?â€
You mean, why don’t they just starve themselves to death like normal people? Or maybe set fire to themselves?
De gustibus….
unbveleivable 05.06.06 at 11:24 am
What exactly was the guy convicted of DOING anyway?
just asking.
Comments on this entry are closed.