One Juror Between Terrorist And Death

The foreman said Moussaoui's testimony, though dramatic, had little impact on deliberations in either phase of the sentencing trial. In the first phase, the jury found that he was eligible for the death penalty. In the second, the panel could not agree on a death sentence, so Moussaoui automatically was sentenced to life in prison.

"Most of the jurors didn't give much weight to Moussaoui's testimony in the first part or the second part," she said. "Though I gathered from his second testimony that he really didn't want the death penalty. I gathered that from a few comments he made."

The jurors did not believe the defense team's argument that Moussaoui was suffering from mental illness, the foreman said, but they thought some of his actions, including volunteering to testify for the prosecution, were "bizarre."

But bizarre behavior does not equal mental illness, she said. "We did not put any credence in that," she said. "That was a given. . . . I think most of us found Moussaoui to be intelligent, smart, crafty and a great manipulator. Those were the comments that were frequently thrown around the table."

She said jurors found that Moussaoui was eligible for the death penalty after the trial's first phase because they decided that at least part of the Sept. 11 attacks could have been prevented if he had not lied to the FBI after his arrest in August 2001.

She said the jury went through the evidence methodically, creating a timeline of events that might have taken place if the government had allowed FBI agent Harry Samit to obtain a warrant to search Moussaoui's belongings. Each day, she said, the jurors would take photos by famed photographer Ansel Adams off the walls and hang posters they had created to keep track of the evidence. At the end of the day, they would carefully rehang the photos.

She said the initial vote in the first phase was 10 to 2, but once jurors completed the timeline, a unanimous verdict came quickly. "We were very exacting. We were very careful," she said. "And I think because of the emotional nature of 9/11 that we went out of our way to be driven by evidence, facts and inferences beyond reasonable doubt."

She has gone back to work after taking a few days off and is still processing the experience. She still wonders why the one dissenter never raised specific objections to sentencing Moussaoui to death.

"We don't know whether we covered all of the cons in the deliberations," she said. "Our sense was this was a done deal for that person and whoever that person is, they were consistent from the first day and their point of view didn't change."

Staff writer Jerry Markon contributed to this report.