Legal Reasoning

I've been thinking about the prosecution theory being propounded in the death penalty phase of the Zacharias Moussaoui trial. As I understand it, based only on news reports, so of course I may be wrong, the contention is that, by lying and not telling the authorities what he knew about the 9/11 conspiracy, Moussaoui prevented the government from taking steps it otherwise would have taken, and so people died, which is why he deserves execution instead of just life in prison.

So, if you lie, or fail to tell the truth to government officials, and your lies lead to the government taking a certain course of action that leads to people dying, you should be executed. Huh. Unless you happen to also be a government official, in which case it's all good? I'm just wondering.

Of course, another part of the logical-linking in that argument is that the government really would have done the things to stop 9/11, if Moussaoui had talked his head off. I think they'll have a harder time proving that after this testimony:

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 20 — The F.B.I. agent who arrested and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui just weeks before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, told a jury today that his efforts to confirm his strong suspicions that Mr. Moussaoui was involved in a terrorist airline hijacking plot were thwarted by senior bureau officials in Washington who acted out of negligence and a need to protect their careers.

Harry Samit, under intense cross-examination by Mr. Moussaoui's chief court-appointed lawyer, detailed his frustration over the days before the hijacking as he made numerous requests to look into what Mr. Moussaoui had been up to at the time of his arrest. Mr. Moussaoui was arrested on immigration violations in Minnesota, where he was learning to fly a jetliner.

"I accused the people in F.B.I. headquarters of criminal negligence" in an interview after Sept. 11, Mr. Samit acknowledged under questioning by Edward B. MacMahon Jr. He said that the senior agents in Washington "took a calculated risk not to advance the investigation" by refusing to seek search warrants for Mr. Moussaoui's belongings and computer. "The wager was a national tragedy," Mr. Samit testified.

Mr. Samit said that two senior agents declined to provide help in getting a search warrant, either through a special panel of judges that considers applications for foreign intelligence cases or through a normal application to any federal court for a criminal investigation.

As a field agent in Minnesota, he said he required help and approval from headquarters to continue his investigation. He acknowledged that he had written that Michael Maltbie, an agent in the F.B.I.'s radical fundamentalist unit, told him that applications for the special intelligence court warrants had proved troublesome for the bureau and seeking one "was just the kind of thing that would get F.B.I. agents in trouble." He wrote that Mr. Maltbie had told him that "he was not about to let that happen to him."