Moussaoui Evades Death, Receives Life in Prison
As soon as my co-worker found out, he exclaimed, "Oh man! Moussaoui got life in prison!" He was obviously disappointed. At first I was too. A lot of people were hoping for the death penalty. But isn't this just a case of mob psychology? Think about it. The man was brought up on conspiracy charges. No matter what he was conspiring to do, we shouldn't execute people because they were planning to do something.
In my criminal law classes, one of the first things we were taught was that the parts of a crime are mens rea, the thought, and actus reus, the act. You simply can't obtain a conviction without both. The punishment for murder is not the same for thinking or helping plan a murder, nor should it be. I know thousands of people think this man should die for the magnitude of the crime he helped plan. But would they say the same for someone helping plan to murder John Doe down the street?
Make no mistake, I am a proponent of the death penalty in some cases, but this is not one of them. Kudos to the jury on this one.
