Personally, I think this was the better choice, but not for the reasons that were cited by the various jurors in the linked article. No, it's obvious that as time went on, Moussaoui realized he wasn't going to be acquitted, so he instead tried to charge head-on and make himself to seem like a big, bad villain, to try to earn the death penalty and make himself a martyr. So, we rob him of his glory and let him rot for the rest of his life in a maximum-security cell. I think it's a much harsher punishment than death, myself.
Naturally, this doesn't resolve anything in the grand scheme of things, but since we'd caught him, it's worth a small moral victory to say we've convicted and will punish him in the way he'd least wanted � by denying him martyrdom.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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"The jury convicted him to life in prison, where he will spend the rest of his life. In so doing, they spared his life,"
Registered: Mar 2004
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They keep talking about this uber-high security prison, and all I can think of is "pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison"...
Registered: Mar 1999
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If only: murder some child, get it in the ass forvermore, murder a few thousand, get a nice cell in solitary with (suprise!) his own Quoran to read. You know, the book he uses to justify his part in 9/11
It ant the hilton, but it's a fuck of alot more than he deserves.
Justice would be for every 9/11 family member to get a turn kicking the shit out of him for the rest of his life.
I'd settle for the guards playing a looping tape of Barry Manilow's Copacabana and the (Serenity) Fruity Oaty Bars song 24/7 in his cell. Really loud. Forever.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
I'd play the Vonage song over and over again, at max volume, with electric shocks to his ears in time with the beat...
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
I LIKE "Copacabana", dick. AND the Fruity Oaty Bar jingle.
("Vonage song?" Shu muh?)
Omega: Supermax is not a happy place. The doors are those rotating airlock types. Each cell has 24-hour video surveillance. Food through a slot. No amenities. It's very easy, also, for guards to turn off the camera, go into the cells, & beat the hell out of the inmates.
How do I know? Talked with a guy in jail whose brother was in the Baltimore Supermax for a while; it's also where the DC snipers are being held.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
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I'd play Enya's "Orinoco flow", and everytime she says "Sail away" turn the firehose on him full force in the face till that smirk was washed away. Then feed him nothing but bacon served by a Jewish chef.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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Isn't Supermax also where you get all of 1 hour out of your cell per day and where you get a full body cavity search every time you leave the cell and every time you go back in?
quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: I'd play Enya's "Orinoco flow", and everytime she says "Sail away" turn the firehose on him full force in the face till that smirk was washed away. Then feed him nothing but bacon served by a Jewish chef.
What about "Faith of the Heart"...oh wait that's inhumane.
Registered: Feb 2005
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The Rocky Mountain News reposrts this story:
quote:Supermax in Florence likely to be new home
By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News May 4, 2006
Zacarias Moussaoui's new home behind bars is expected to be Supermax in Florence, the federal Bureau of Prisons' highest security lockup.
Officially called the United States Penitentiary - Administrative Maximum, the 484-bed facility has become the main prison for those captured in the nation's war on terror.
Nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," the $60 million facility opened in 1994.
Moussaoui will undergo an evaluation to determine his security classification and placement in the prison system, bureau spokesman Mike Truman said. That evaluation could take several weeks.
The bureau has 12 high-security penitentiaries across the country, including one next door to Supermax in Florence.
But it has only one Supermax, reserved for inmates considered the most dangerous and disruptive.
In recent years, most of those convicted in high-profile terrorism crimes have been sent to Supermax. Among them are Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, convicted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a Pakistani engineer and self-described mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Krista Rear, spokeswoman for the Administrative Maximum facility known as ADMAX, said that there was virtually no chance that Moussaoui would ever come in contact with the other al-Qaida operatives that are among 401 inmates confined at the prison.
High-risk inmates are held in solitary confinement in their cells 23 hours a day, with an hour out for solo exercise.
"As far as physically running into someone or having direct contact, that doesn't happen here," Rear said. "Our inmates do not have physical contact with each other."
Cells are equipped with showers, and meals are delivered to inmates in their cells to restrict interaction. Each cell also is equipped for 24- hour video and audio surveillance.
Not every high-profile U.S. prisoner is housed at Supermax.
Deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is serving his sentence in a medium-security prison in Miami, Truman said.
Residing at Supermax
� Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber"
� Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center
� Eric Rudolph, the abortion-clinic bomber
� Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber
� Terry Nichols, who assisted in staging the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building
� Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Egyptian sheik convicted in a plot to blow up New York City landmarks
� Wadih El-Hage, convicted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
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So you basically live out your life with no contact with any other human being except the guards whose job it is to make sure you have absolutely no freedoms.
While I'm not saying such treatment is not deserved, explain to me how that doesn't amount to psychological torture.
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The nasty part of my mind wonders if the Framers didn't originally intend the clause about cruel and unusual punishments to mean "the punishment must fit the crime".
The conscientious part of me thinks of a meaningful pre-quote from Andromeda: "The truest measure of a society is how it treats its elderly, its pets, and its prisoners."
Sigh. Sometimes, I really hate having a conscience.
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