Moussaoui: the first verdict, and the next phase
on Apr 4, 2006 at 11:45 am
UPDATE: The verdict form, as filled out by the jury and issued Monday, can be found here. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the District Court made public the jury verdict form for the second phase of the death penalty proceeding, in which the jury will decide for or against a death sentence for Zacarias Moussaoui. This new form can be found here.
The jury trying the death penalty proceeding of convicted terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Monday agreed unanimously that he is eligible for the death sentence. The jury’s verdict form, as shown here, is blank. But a spokesman for U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., told reporters that the jury had marked “yes” on every queston that is listed on this form.
From an examination of the questions that the jury answered affirmatively, it seems clear that the 12 jurors accepted the government’s main argument that Moussaoui’s lying to federal agents after his capture before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks prevented the government from taking steps it could have taken to prevent or at least to diminish those attacks. The jury thus appeared to have been persuaded that, by lying, Moussaoui can be held responsible for at least one of the nearly 3,000 deaths that occurred in those attacks.
The jury probably was unmoved by a defense argument that Moussaoui was seeking to be a martyr, put to death by the Americans, with his claim on the witness stand that he played an active part in the 9/11 plot, and lied to federal agents in order to help assure that the attack plan would go forward. The jury seems to have taken Moussaoui at his word on the stand, however much his testimony there may have been a marked contradiction of what he had claimed previously.
On Thursday, the second phase of the death penalty trial begins. During the coming weeks, federal prosecutors are expected to put on a dramatic display of victim impact evidence, to convince the jury of the horror wreaked by the attacks — and, for which, the jury already has found Moussaoui to be culpable, at least in part. That emotional evidence is expected to form the core of the assertion that “aggravating factors” clearly support a death sentence.
For their part, defense lawyers will seek to portray Moussaoui as unstable and perhaps even mentally imbalanced, in order to convince the jury that there are “mitigating factors” in favor of sparing his life. The defense also may try again, as it did unsuccessfully on the eligibility-for-death issue, that Moussaoui wants the jury to make him a martyr.
It was widely believed, by those following the death proceeding closely, that the hardest burden for the government would be the death eligibility verdict. And, with the jury now unanimously in favor of eligibility, it seems only a matter of time until the proceeding results in an actual death sentence.
It is a virtual certainty that his defense lawyers will seek to appeal any death verdict, ultimately to the Supreme Court. He probably would not cooperate in any such appeal, but his lawyers may proceed without his concurrence, as they have throughout the death penalty proceeding.
