Comments on: No death sentence for Moussaoui

By: Kent Scheidegger

Kent Scheidegger — Thu, 04 May 2006 20:58:45 +0000

Marc writes:

“By the way, no media source has suggested that it was 11-1 for death.”

Note the indefinite article, “if a jury….” Was it not crystal clear that my statement about 11-1 was general and not a claim that this was the vote in this particular case?

“I would hardly look to California for a model penal code.”

The state of the California Penal Code as a whole is irrelevant. The point is that this particular provision is superior to the practice in federal courts and should be adopted.

The practice of requiring juries to deliberate until they are unanimous one way or the other works well in California. Although the juries do sometimes hang and retrials are sometimes necessary, that is preferable to allowing a single juror to veto the death penalty, a practice which needlessly introduces an element of arbitrariness into the system.

At this point, we do not have enough information to assess the probability that a true unanimity rule would have resulted in a retrial in this case. More information about the vote and the deliberations will be forthcoming, I expect.

By: Marc Shepherd

Marc Shepherd — Thu, 04 May 2006 17:47:44 +0000

To Kent Scheidegger: Had the rule you suggest been in place, all it means is that we probably would have had a hung jury, and this farce would have played out all over again. I would hardly look to California for a model penal code. By the way, no media source has suggested that it was 11-1 for death.

By: federalist

federalist — Thu, 04 May 2006 17:20:44 +0000

Let’s just hope that, now that jury has spoken, (a) Moussaoui does not kill or maim a prison guard and (b) no Americans get kidnapped with one of the demands for release being the release of Moussaoui.

I also fear that terrorists who want to kill us take away from this verdict that we lack the moral courage to hunt them down and kill them.

Time will tell.

By: Kent Scheidegger

Kent Scheidegger — Thu, 04 May 2006 17:11:10 +0000

Actually, we don’t know what “the jury” decided. The verdict form merely tells us that the jury was not unanimous in favor of death. Under the seriously screwed up federal death penalty law, if a jury is divided 11 for death and 1 for life in prison, the judgment of the 1 trumps the judgment of the 11.

I don’t know how I would have voted if I had been on the jury myself. Here we have a very peripheral player in an exceptionally horrific crime, and those two factors are difficult to balance. But the law should require the jury to come to an actual, unanimous decision one way or the other, as it does in California.

Congress needs to fix this.

By: Rumpole

Rumpole — Thu, 04 May 2006 16:46:33 +0000

Justice was done,and we should be glad that a federally assisted suicide and world wide riots will not occur.

By: 14th Amendment

14th Amendment — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:12:45 +0000

I can’t say if this is a victory for anyone, save the defense team, who dealt with a hostile client and a bumbling prosecution that nearly derailed the entire affair.

Justice is not about what Moussaoui wants, it’s about what society demands. Should we demand he be put to death for his role in Sept 11? I doubt that can ever be answered beyond a reasonable doubt: the government’s case was not compelling, and the defendant’s own sworn admissions are contradictory. In light of that, death is not an acceptable result.

Statements here alluding to “prison justice” are appalling. It is the height of cynnicism to suggest that a prison population can correct what the legal system cannot achieve. That is not the function of prisons, and that is not why people are sent there. Consigning them to this role is an enormous social cop-out. The membership of this board should be well above this base rhetoric.

By: r.friedman

r.friedman — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:42:03 +0000

Actually, this case is a failure of the legal system, it is an attempted judicial suicide. With a really weak prosecution theory, some moderately helpful defense evidence, and a strong confrontation clause issue to be resolved, and a judge who seemed of a mind to overturn a jury verdict if the tie between Moussaoui’s interrogation and the deaths at Twin Towers wasn’t proved, Moussaoui was able to abort a guilt-or-innocence trial and appeal by pleading guilty. Then, at the death eligibility trial, he was able by his own statements to make a case for the government that it couldn’t make for itself. All this was done by a person who was marginally competent at the start of the proceedings and has spent 4 years in solitary in the Alexandria jail. When a system based on adversaries is short-circuited by someone who wants to die, the resolution is never a victory.

By: CDebateAdmin

CDebateAdmin — Thu, 04 May 2006 10:20:28 +0000

This is really, really bad. Trying to turn this into a victory by saying this isn’t what Moussaoui wanted is missing the point. For one, Moussaoui was obviously pleased with this verdict. For another, our system of justice should not depend on the desires of murderers, so even if he did want death (the martyr theory), that’s not a reason to NOT give it to him. There is virtually no chance of “prison justice”, as he will be in a nice, protected cell. The creep likes solitude, so this sort of confinement will not be a punishment for him like it would be for most of us. He will have access to the Koran, good meals, possibly newspapers/books depending on the policy of the Supermax he’ll be in, and he’s got such a good legal team that he’ll never face harassment from the guards. I rarely question the wisdom of juries, but as they were obviously swayed by touchy-feely garbage here, I think this was an incredibly stupid and gullible jury.

By: yankee_mark

yankee_mark — Thu, 04 May 2006 01:40:32 +0000

Simon,

It seems unlikely that Moussaoui will be incarecerated in any facility where he will have access to other prisoners or vice-versa. In all likelihood it’ll be one of those 23-hours per day in your cell with 1-hour of solo recreation places. As I’m one who disagrees with the “We’re at war” argument, I’m glad to see our justice is able to handle (dispose of) vermin as designed.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 04 May 2006 01:13:07 +0000

Marc,
I don’t disagree that this may represent a failure on the government’s part. None-the-less, I can’t help but think it is wrongheaded to think that Moussaoui has gotten off easily. Instead of getting a quick way out by a nice cosy lethal injection, doesn’t it seem reasonably likely that Moussaoui will now face the rough justice that I can fairly easily imagine will be meted out out to him by the prison population daily for the rest of his life, while guards turn an appreciatively blind eye to the prisoners’ activities? Prisoners do not live in a cave, and I’m sure they will be very much aware of who he is and what he did.

By: Marc Shepherd

Marc Shepherd — Wed, 03 May 2006 22:13:39 +0000

The verdict in this case is a failure for the government in more ways than one. On the most obvious level, prosecutors didn’t get the death penalty they’d sought. Since Moussaoui had already pleaded guilty anyway, the entire trial was an exercise in futility.

Besides the wasted time and expense of trial, there is also the anguish of the 9/11 victims’ family members, who had to relive their grief as they testified against the defendant, only to find that it was unavailing.

Along the way, the government had to endure the embarrassing incompetence of staff attorney Carla Martin, whose tampering almost brought the trial to an early end.

And Moussaoui was a winner in more ways than one. Not only was his life spared, but the government’s pursuit of the death penalty gave him a platform from which he could spew his unique brand of hate, and have it broadcast worldwide as “news from the trial.”

I agree with Lyle: it is a major defeat for the government.