Proving An Efficiency Not Previously Displayed

After several years of delay amid legal wrangling over numerous issues, most prominently the intersection of national security concerns and the right to a fair trial as well as the antics of a questionably sane defendant, the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui has begun. Since Moussaouri already has pleaded guilty to conspiring to hijack planes and commit other crimes in furtherance of al-Qaeda activities, the jury sitting in Alexandria, Virginia need only decide whether Moussaouri should be executed. If the jurors cannot agree that he should be killed, then he will receive a sentence of life in prison without parole.

As this article explains, in order to obtain the death penalty, federal prosecutors must convince the jury that a direct link exists between Moussaouri and September 11, 2001, attacks. But since Moussaouri had been arrested weeks before the attacks, the government is left to argue that had he not lied to the authorities, the attacks would have been prevented. As prosecutor Rob Spencer put it, "[h]ad Mr. Moussaoui just told the truth, it would all have been different."

Maybe. But that argument seems to assume quite a lot, not least being that Moussaouri knew meaningful details regarding what the other September 11 plotters were going to do. I have no idea how terrorist conspirators work, but that notion strikes me as unlikely. Prosecutors might have an easier time if everyone did not already know how the government used -- or didn't use -- the information that it actually did have. And prosecutors should hope that none of the jurors saw the FEMA videos last week showing the President and other senior administration officials being told in advance about breached levees, serious problems at the Superdome, and other predictable consequences of Hurricane Katrina.