Zacarius Moussaoui Sentence Displays Some Wisdom By Jurors

The jurors in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial did display some wisdom in the life sentence rather than the death penalty verdict for this mentally ill defendant. There is a long standing tradition in American justice not to execute the mentally ill for their crimes.

The brother of Zacarias Moussaoui makes a good case for compassion for this mentally defendant in his book , "ZACARIAS, MY BROTHER", by Abd Moussaoui. A childhood of terrible abuse of both the mother and children by the father of this Moroccan immigrant family is indeed a terriby sad portrait of an outrageously abusive childhood in a very dysfunctional family.

The court appointed defense team for this diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic defendant had a very difficult time fulfilling their court appointed duties because of his uncooperative nature and delusional mental illness. And while Al Qaeda likely recruited him as he claimed, his ability to carry out some of the terrorist acts he claimed are far beyond belief.

One of his most suspect claims is that he and convicted shoebomber, British, Richard Reid, were supposed to fly a jetliner into the White House. Paranoid schizophrenics are simply too delusional and uncoordinated to fly large and complex passenger aircraft. And even the most skilled of professional passenger airline pilots will tell you that targeting a small object like the White House with a fast moving object like a passenger aircraft is nearly impossible. The far more "skilled" terrorists who actually struck the World Trade center buildings and the Pentagon chose large objects that were far easier to target. Paranoid schizophrenics are likely to have household accidents such as falls or knocking over objects such as lamps due to serious coordination and perceptional problems. Like other outrageous statements from Zacarias Mossaoui, there is little reason to trust in such foolish delusional statements. Prosecutors were nearly as gullible to believe that this mentally ill defendant had the necessary skills to create or plan a serious act of violence.

Other than an immigration violation and being a member of Al Qaeda that likely could have been deployed in some sort of suicide mission by far more "intelligent" and more "normal" minded Al Qaeda members, a paranoid schizophrenic personality such as Mossaoui simply lacks the personal skills necessary to commit a large scale act of violence all by themselves. But paranoid schizophrenics are indeed the most dangerous classification of mentally ill persons. The recent murder of a 17 year old McDonald's employee by a paranoid schizophrenic with a butcher knife was part of a disturbed conspiracy psychology where the murderer planned to target a female person because he imagined that females were responsible for all of his problems. Moussaoui's source of unhappiness is the nearly the same. He blames Americans for all of his problems when it is a highly dysfunctional childhood and his mental illness that gives him so much emotional and mental anguish.

The jury did display wisdom in keeping society safe from a dangerously mentally ill individual highly likely to be involved in a future serious crime if running free in society. Paranoid schizophrenics simply have way too many bizarre delusions in many cases, that they feel can only be resolved through violence. Society must be kept safe from a mentally ill person who blames all of his problems on innocent American citizens. The Prognosis for treatment of paranoid schizophrenics is not always good. And any of them prone to violence is a dangerous potential for some sort of acting out. For the safety of American society as well as wisom and compassion, the jury did come up with about the best decision that they could based on the type of charges brought against the defendant.