It was announced earlier this afternoon that Zacharias Moussaoui would be sentenced to life in prison without parole. According to Breitbart:

After seven days of deliberation, the nine men and three women rebuffed the government’s appeal for death for the only person charged in this country in the four suicide jetliner hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

Three jurors decided Moussaoui had only limited knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot and three described his role in the attacks as minor, if he had any role at all.

Moussaoui, as he was led out of the courtroom after the 15-minute hearing, said: “America, you lost. I won.” He clapped his hands as he was escorted away.

“You lost, I won”? I thought this sucker wanted to die? At any rate, I decided not to judge the jury too harshly, and wait until I had heard why they rejected the death penalty.

I have sat on a jury tasked with determining the fate of an individual accused of murder, and I know that we all took our job very seriously. In that particular trial the individual was charged with first-degree murder, but we found him guilty of manslaughter. Based on the evidence and the judge’s instructions, we felt that we could — and should — reach no other decision. So until the details come out about why they voted as they did, I will withhold any condemnation of them.

Secondly, it may well be that the jury inadvertently gave the American people exactly what many of us want, and did indeed sentence him to death. A prison can be a very dangerous place, as Jeffrey Dahmer, John Geoghan, and others have discovered. These individuals were murdered in prison by other inmates who were appalled at the crimes Dahmer and Geoghan had committed — no mean feat to reach that level in a maximum security prison, I would imagine, but child abusers and mass murderers have never been held in particularly high regard by the “normal” prison population.

While executing an individual within the confines of the law was what I was hoping for, having an American — even one convicted of a felony — get his hands around the scrawny little neck of that weasel has a certain sense of poetic justice about it.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Protein Wisdom argues with the logic of those convinced that killing Moussaoui would have only given him what he wanted:

I mean, sure, some folks are going to argue that killing him would have turned him into the martyr he desired being.  To which I say, so what?  He’d also be dead.  Which should be the fate of those who conspired to attack us on 911. 

Besides, as Rusty Shackleford points out, “By that logic, no jihadi should ever be killed!”

Life from the trenches….literally points out that the rewards of martyrdom will now elude the little terrorist who couldn’t:

What a spectacular way to punctuate the ending of a less than adequate ‘Jihad Martyr’. Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Wednesday, was sentenced to Life in Prison, not the Death Penalty, and I for one can think of no other way to disgrace, humiliate, and dispose of such a despicable character. No martyrdom. No virgins. No glory. Only shame and disgrace as the little engineer that couldn’t. There is joy in Muddville tonight!

Little Green Footballs explains the difference between martyrdom and humiliation:

Note: in radical Islamic ideology, being captured by infidels and executed does not equal martyrdom. It equals humiliation. The ‘72 virgins/raisins’ fantasy is reserved for those who die ‘gloriously’ in battle.

IMAO thinks Moussaoui will make a great game question:

I’m still of the opinion the guy is just too pathetic to kill. If he were really evil, he wouldn’t have to try so hard to sound evil. Well, I guess he’ll have plenty of time now to work on his evilness, but, considering how Charlie Manson seems less and less threatening as time goes by, this was probably Moussaoui’s highpoint. In a number of years, at best he’ll be a somewhat difficult Trivial Pursuit question.

Point Five likens his situation to that of Br’er Rabbit:

Jurors originally debated at length just exactly which method of death would be most appropriate for the so-called “20th hijacker” of 9/11/01, a day when 2,986 Americans were murdered in cold blood by al Qaeda terrorists. But sometime around the 41st hour of deliberations, it dawned on Juror #7 that maybe the worst possible punishment for Moussaoui would be to throw him into the very briar patch he so forcefully pleaded against.

“It came to me in a flash,” he said. “It was like pure, beautiful poetic justice. Nobody’s going to accuse America of being the ‘weak horse’ ever again.”

Publius Rendezvous has a roundup, too.

Technorati: Moussaoui, 9-11, life in prison, war on terror

TD