Judge gets final word

Moussaoui Offers Final Diatribe in Court - Yahoo! News

Brinkema firmly refused to be interrupted by the 37-year-old defendant as she disputed his claim that his life sentence meant America had lost and he had won. She went on: "You will spend the rest of your life in a supermax prison. It's absolutely clear who won." "Mr. Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr in a great big bang of glory," she said, "but to paraphrase the poet T.S. Eliot, instead you will die with a whimper." At that point, Moussaoui tried again to interrupt her, but she raised her voice and spoke over him. "You will never get a chance to speak again and that's an appropriate ending."

Where he will rot. Alone. Good on you, Judge Brinkema. Peggy Noonan has a different opinion of the verdict, and why Moussaoui will live. I wish I could get a few people I know to read it. OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan

This is what the jury announced yesterday. They did not doubt Moussaoui was guilty of conspiracy. They did not doubt his own testimony as to his guilt. They did not think he was incapable of telling right from wrong. They did not find him insane. They did believe, however, that he had had an unstable childhood, that his father was abusive and then abandoning, and that as a child, in his native France, he'd suffered the trauma of being exposed to racial slurs. As I listened to the court officer read the jury's conclusions yesterday I thought: This isn't a decision, it's a non sequitur. Of course he had a bad childhood; of course he was abused. You don't become a killer because you started out with love and sweetness. Of course he came from unhappiness. So, chances are, did the nice man sitting on the train the other day who rose to give you his seat. Life is hard and sometimes terrible, and that is a tragedy. It explains much, but it is not a free pass.