Thursday, May 04, 2006

The Verdict

I'm pretty proud of the jury and the verdict they've handed down in the Zacarias Moussoui sentencing phase. Despite a full-court press by our government and no shortage of media coverage, they came to the right decision. Moussoui wasn't on any of the planes, and his level of involvement in the intimate details of the 9/11 plot is completely suspect. The people who did it are dead...or hiding in the hills of god-knows-where.

I was struck by two very different perspectives from relatives of victims in reaction to the verdict;

Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, died on hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center, said "This man was an al-Qaida wannabe who could never put together the 9/11 attacks," Lemack said. "He's a wannabe who deserves to rot in jail."

But Patricia Reilly, who lost her sister Lorraine Lee in the New York attacks, was deflated. "I guess in this country you can kill 3,000 people and not pay with your life," she said. "I feel very much let down by this country."

I feel for Ms. Reilly's loss, but Zacarias Moussoui didn't kill 3,000 people. Her statement is factually wrong.

The sentence of life in prison, however, was exactly right.

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