Zacarias Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty, according to a US jury. You would hope that the death penalty would be reserved for the most horrendous crimes. Moussaoui didn’t kill anyone, or even harm anyone. He just lied to the FBI.

The consequences of those lies were terrible (if, of course, we assume his full confession would have prevented the attack – which is far from given). But he didn’t actually do it. He knew about it, any didn’t tell anybody. That probably applies to a great many people. You can’t plan something like this without a large number of people knowing; and yet, Moussaoui is eligible to be murdered by the state. It’s not even clear that he was actually involved in 9/11.

Capital punishment is wrong at the very best of times. In situations like this, it is doubtlessly brutal murder – all the more brutal than that on 9/11 because it is sanctioned by the state.