The death penalty is not suddenly on the table when the verdict is in. It is part and parcel of the crimes the defendant is charged with, not found guilty of. There was one point where the judge was going to take it off the table because of government witness tampering, but ultimately the prosecution was able to produce new witnesses.

All for naught, since the jury did not buy the prosecution claims that Mousssaoui was a 9/11 linchpin.

Am I missing something here or not understanding what you are saying? I think I'm missing something. I realize that the death penalty is an option for sentencing at the outset, but only an option if actually found guilty of that crime. So the charge - and I guess the guilty plea involved - said that he bore some responsibility for at least one death. I know it wasn't presented as an option after the verdict (since there was no verdict with the guilty plea) was in.

I was just saying that in order for the death penalty to have been on the table at all he must have met that standard.

Not so. Moussaoui plead guilty, so there was never a trial to determine guilt. There were instead 2 phases in the court. The first was to determine if the crimes he plead guilty to were enough to warrant the death penalty as an option, and the second was, once the possible penalties were decided, to decide which penalty he'd get.

As for my feeling that he was not as involved as he and the government said...most observers of the trial (including families of 9/11 victims) were saying it through the whole trial, people who actually knew Moussaoui were saying it in testimony, and now the jurors who made the decission are saying it. I didn't see every detail, but every shred I did see pointed to someone with massive dillusions of grandeur and a government that desperately wanted to say, "If only he told us, we could have stopped it," which is a load of crap.

I think the government was foolish to go for the death penalty anyhow. If they succeeded, there was risk his death would potentially have made him a martyr. If the did not succeed, they "lose." If it were my decision, I would never have sought the death penalty and made it clear that he was "too insignificant" to merit that. We're used to prosecutors seeking the highest punishment possible without necessarily expecting to get it, but in other cultures that it seems to me that might be perceived as losing face, which we are apparently supposed to be concerned about when international affairsare concerned. What was so wrong with accepting his guilty plea, sentencing him to life, and taking away his soapbox?

Anyhow, what annoys me is reporting that says "the jury was not convinced that Moussaoui deserved to die." Of course he deserves to die, and it would be really super if a chunk of frozen airplane "ice" could crush his skull during some period of transport or another, but that does't mean the government successfully proved its case on whatever specific issue the jury was considering. I think he deserves to die, but I wouldn't want to give him the satisfaction. Of course, I'm probably the only person who quibbles with this characterization of the jury, so I'll go back to refusing to acknowledge that he exists.

Being alone for the rest of my life. That would be the worst punishment for me ever.

Source
Powerful words.

Yeah, the judge totally rocked.

day-um.....that's incredible.

I'm glad they went with life.....it's fitting.

So, with all the hub-bub about witness tampering, the outbursts of the defendant, the death-or-life debate, and the every-detail-of-9/11 they tried to pin on him ... and despite the fact that he pleaded guilty ... I missed whatever shreds of evidence the prosecution had that Moussaoui was in on the 9/11 plot.

I mean, I know he was trying to learn to pilot aircraft, and that's how he got nabbed 3 weeks before the 11th. And I know he claims to be a member of al Queda, sent by Allah and bin Laden to fly planes into buildings .... but was there any evidence presented at trial to corroborate his claims of evil grandeur? Or was his confession the only evidence of his actual guilt?