Mr. Moussaoui's Punishment

When prosecutors and a defendant are eager for a death sentence, think twice.

WHAT JURY COULD spare accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui from capital punishment? Mr. Moussaoui does not just admit his role in the attacks, he boasts of it. He claims more culpability than the government can prove. He revels in the attacks' success and sneers at and insults the grieving families of the victims. He mocks the justice system that would hold him accountable. What jury could find the mitigating factors in his case outweighing the aggravating ones? Only a jury -- or individual jurors -- both wise and courageous.

We oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle. But in Mr. Moussaoui's case, there are at least two reasons for sparing him, independent of one's views on capital punishment. The first is that Mr. Moussaoui's actual connections to the attacks are tenuous. The government wishes to put him to death because, by lying to investigators at the time of his detention, he allegedly prevented them from unraveling the conspiracy. This is an emotionally powerful argument, because everyone wants to be able to rewind the clock and have another shot at stopping what happened that day -- or, at least, to hold someone responsible in lieu of 19 hijackers unavailable for trial. And it ironically dovetails with an apparently powerful emotional need on Mr. Moussaoui's part to take credit for the attacks. It may even be correct, as the jury found in holding him eligible for death.

But the government's theory is inherently speculative, and America shouldn't administer lethal injections based on speculation. Mr. Moussaoui is a braggart and at least a little bit nutty. He didn't actually kill anyone. Allowing his execution would potentially open the door for executions of low-level conspirators in other crimes, not for actual participation but for allowing them to happen. It's a dangerous road.

The second reason to spare Mr. Moussaoui is to avoid martyring him -- both in his own mind and, more important, in the minds of al-Qaeda sympathizers around the world. Al-Qaeda is, among other things, a death cult; Osama bin Laden once described his fighters as "The Nation of Martyrdom; the Nation that desires death more than you desire life." Everything about Mr. Moussaoui's behavior throughout his trial testifies to his yearning for martyrdom. Prosecutors are happy to oblige, but it's not the smart response.