The Sandbox

The jury decided that Moussaoui will spend the rest of his life wrapped up in a little cell with nothing to keep him company but his own hate. Death will come eventually, it comes to everyone. He'll just get a lot of time to think about it. This is the best outcome for several reasons:

• He is a crazed megalomaniac who wants to be a martyr.
• The connection between his actions and the 9/11 terrorist strike is tennuous.
• True punishment can only occur when he wakes up and realizes he's evil. This won't happen any time soon.

But, the most important aspect is this: He isn't the one we want to punish. We want to kill Moussaoui because 19 other guys did something really evil and he's a lot closer. There are people to be hunted, Osama Bin Laden, for instance. But killing Moussaoui knowing he's just a stand-in for those others is a moral compromise that, once made, permanently takes us down the same road.

Maybe it's supposed to be a form of therapy.

A Washington Post article gives two more reasons people are giving for spending over half a million dollars trying a man who is already waiting for the death penalty in Virginia:

The source said Maryland prosecutors don't believe Malvo's testimony would be necessary to convict Muhammad. But Malvo could divulge new details and motives for the slayings, which terrorized the Washington region in October 2002. 

A source familiar with Malvo's thinking, said Malvo is "seeking some sort of personal redemption by telling his story."

Meanwhile, a potential juror was honest and, obviously struck from the jury pool.  Her feelings, though, most be very close to those of everyone else there:

"His guilt is obvious," said Dimsey, a middle-aged woman who recalled the terror she felt for herself and her daughter during the attacks of 2002, which took their heaviest toll in Montgomery. "Anybody who says he comes in without an opinion is not telling the truth."

As we've already mentioned, John Mohammed has been convicted, and given the death penalty, for his crimes in Virginia.  Now Maryland is, for no clearly discernible reason, giving him an opportunity to call witnesses and declaim his crazy theories publicly.  The latest, somewhat predictable turn of events?

All the potential jurors think he's guilty.  Duh, he was convicted in a very public trial.  Even though a juror may be able to block out news reports, police statements, and lawyer commentary, the fact that another jury has churned through the same pile of evidence and found the man guilty is, well, hard to ignore.  So the prosecutor will continue to drag through Maryland jury pools for twelve people either didn't notice we were subject to a virtual siege under the sniper's predations, or perhaps come up with twelve conspiracy theorists who insist that Nicole Simpson may have been killed by Columbian drug dealers. 

I've stated I'm against the death penalty, but not for pure ideological reasons.  John Mohammed, the DC area sniper, has been convicted and given the death penalty already.  I won't shed a tear when he dies.  If we have the penalty, which we do, he certainly deserves it. 

Why the heck is the Maryland prosecutor allowing him to play games in the meantime?  Another trial is just an opportunity for a crazy man to torture his victims and the community with his aggresive grand-standing.  He is representing himself and is trying to call anywhere from 200 to 345 witnesses.  Why?  So he can cross examine people on the stand for his own entertainment?  He has nothing to lose in this trial.  No incentive not to make into a self-serving circus.  The man should be in some small, quiet room where he can meditate on his own crimes without an audience.  And, if someone takes him out behind the barn and shoots him, that's fine with me, too. 

A jury found him eligible for the death penalty. Now, I lean against the death penatly, but I'm not really troubled when certain people receive it. My problem is more with those who are wrongfully convicted, or those who, because of poverty, race, or other conditions, get the penalty in circumstances where a richer, whiter person would only go to jail.

Moussaui doesn't trigger any real sympathy from me. But, he didn't kill anybody. He did not order anyone killed. He may have plotted to kill people, but didn't really stick to the plan. Too lazy. The theory, that he was responsible for someone's death because he didn't tell the FBI what he knew is tenuous. What about those at the FBI who had some knowledge of danger, but didn't do enough to stop it? What about Condi and the "Al Qaida plans to fly airplanes into American buildings" report sitting on her desk? Shouldn't she have done something too? Isn't she even more responsible, as she had the ear of the President? If Moussaui dies I won't feel bad for him. I may even feel cheated, as that's want he seems to want. Punishment would be living out his life in a cell, with nobody to listen to his rants.

But I will feel that we've widened the scope of our death penalty. Once, they could hang you for stealing a horse. But over time we've decided that only killing someone in a particularly brutal, cold, or egregious fashion merits this penalty. Now, apparently, you can get it for being somehow associated with a crime for which the actual perpetrators are either dead or successfully hiding in Afghanistan.