A jury sentenced al Qaeda member Zacharias Moussaoui to life in prison Tuesday. Formal imposition of the sentence occurs today. A majority of jurors were swayed to spare Moussaoui's life because of such mitigating factors as his father's "violent temper" and his "unstable childhood and dysfunctional family." True, Moussaoui never killed anyone (that we know of), and, yes, he had a bad life. But how many unstable childhoods and dysfunctional families did he help create by shutting his mouth (which he couldn't keep closed yesterday) and remaining true to the murderous conspiracy he participated in? Moussaoui may not have had too many breaks in life, but he caught one yesterday. And who knows, perhaps the life sentence is the ultimate insult to this wannabe martyr who eludes execution because success as a terrorist eluded him. In Moussaoui's business "life" means "you failed" and "death" means "congratulations." Who wants to make a bet that twenty, thirty years from now, when 9/11 becomes a distant memory, liberals will speak, when remembering our times, of a witchunt against Muslims in a fevered age and seek clemency for Moussaoui? "He never killed anyone." "He came from a broken home." "He's sorry." "He's been a model prisoner and brought many wayward fellow inmates into a life of faith." "He doesn't pose a threat to anyone anymore." "He was jailed for being Muslim." I can hear the whining already.

We may have given him poetic justice by letting him sit in solitary confinement for the rest of his life so he can reflect on the evil he did, but we did not give him real justice.

His outburst of "America, I won...(Federal prosecutor) you lost" goes to show his lack of repentence and remorse. If we can't even send a man who openly admitted to the fact that he wants Americans dead, then who can we sent to death?

Our whole legal system continues to suffer because we are too weak on criminals. Execution would be a deterrant if we made it painful and public. That's how the Romans did it, and they didn't have to crucify too many criminals because of public, painful executions. A great deterrent in their society!

Why do we always try to justify our inadequacies and weaknesses when it comes to retribution for crimes by explaining them off as our intellectual and philosophical superiority?

For his crimes, this guy deserved only a 50 cent solution and a shallow unmarked grave. Plain and simple.

Quite so!

Ha-ha on the title for this one!

But seriously, I was never sold on the "Stop! Wait! Don't make him a martyr!" argument. The "defendant" is an "enemy combattant". Those were not peers that convicted him: those were American citizens who are not mass murderers. He has mocked our dead, our living, our courts, our entire society. He wants both to kill and to die. Is he not an "enemy combattant" (he is in my mind)? And one during wartime (which it is in my mind)? If people feel sorry for him, gee, then why not offer him job training and a chance to earn another degree or two?

I'm disgusted.

Peggy Noonan in today's WSJ:

"If Moussaoui didn't deserve the death penalty, who does? Who ever did? And if he didn't receive it, do we still have it?"

For the rest of his life he gets to eat, sleep, and read the Koran. This is justice?

It would be - if his life were only going to last another 30 or 90 days.

Christopher, he has to acknowledge that what he did was evil before he can reflect on it as such. That is something I don't think he will every grasp.

Does every occurrence that conservatives disagree with become an opportunity to bash liberals? Is this sorry Arab creep just another chance to demagogue. Conservatives are good at taking the most extreme left positions (that almost no one shares) and assigning it to all liberals and/or democrats. Are conservatives positions that weak?

RC,

Let me ask: what do you think about this situation? You call him an "Arab creep," but do you think that he should or should not be put to death for his actions?

If you DO think he deserves state-sanctioned death, do you REALLY think is it demagoguery to express disgust when he has been determined not to suffer that penalty owing to circumstances such as his father's temperament or his "unstable childhood and dysfunctional family"?

If you do NOT think he deserves the death penalty, then I am a bit confused as to why you bother to mention that balking at his sentencing, given the circumstances, is "extreme" and a position that "almost no one shares."

Please amplify.

Yes he should be put to death. As a liberal I have no problem with the death penalty. Despite what you might have heard this is not a liberal/conservative issue. I’m sure you would agree that it’s important we are sure the person is guilty before we execute them.
Dan’s post just demagogues the issue by assigning the most extreme position to the left, then ridiculing it. Is the conservative position on the death penalty that weak?
You need to trust the jury system even when you don’t necessarily agree with the outcome.

RC: I'm not an advocate of the death penalty, just conflicted. My opposition to it in theory clashes with my anger on certain cases. I didn't say in the post I didn't agree with the outcome. I just said that I didn't agree with the reasons for the outcome. The fact that Moussaoui's father was a bad guy and his family life was screwed up aren't reasons to take or spare the life of someone convicted of capital crimes.

Anyhow, I offered a bet at the end of my post. I was serious. You seem to think it demagoguery to speculate that leftists will call for this guy's release (or transfer to France) someday. Many have already done this with John Walker Lindh. Many leftists are already doing this with the Gitmo prisoners. Do you think that in 20, 30 years, there won't be leftists doing calling for this guy's release?

Are you willing to be labeled by the actions of the extremists on the right? I wouldn't think so.
These "lefties" you refer to do not represent the main stream of liberal thinking. Doubtless there will be those who call for release probably sooner than 20 years from now. So what. We should raise the level of discourse to a higher level if we ignore the fringes on both sides of the spectrum.
More important:
We have to wonder how Susan Smith was able to escape the death penalty? How was Walker Lindh was not even tried for treason?
How did OJ slip away from justice?

OJ slipped away from justice because of the Ambien defense. Oh, no wait, that was another case.

I have no bone to pick w/ life imprisonment, although it is probably not an inherently just punishment (as opposed to capital, which is) and it is a terribly harsh one. I do not appreciate how this jury ended up voting for life imprisonment though. The Washington Post has the inside look: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101884_pf.html

Whomever the juror was who was opposed to the death penalty but refused to treat the other jurors or the legal system with the due respect of actually arguing and defending their view is simply a coward. Speak up, expose your opinion to the arguments of your fellow jurors, and if *in good conscience* you remain unconvinced of the justice of the death sentence then vote accordingly.

This decision was even pointed to by a neoliberal professor of mine as evidence of encouraging progressivism and dissent from the GWOT in this country. Sadly, rather than the triumph of "reason" this is evidence of the fatuousness of the political progressive.