AG Opinion: No Execution for 9/11 Plotters

AG Opinion: No Execution for 9/11 Plotters

By PIERRE THOMAS, JASON RYAN and THERESA COOK March 14, 2008 Font Size Attorney General Michael Mukasey suggested Friday that he believes the alleged 9/11 plotters held at Guantanamo Bay should not be executed if convicted. Mukasey Makes First Trip to Guantanamo "I kind of hope they don't get it," Mukasey said after a speech at the London School of Economics. "Because many of them want to be martyrs, and it's kind of like the conversation … between the sadist and the masochist." "The masochist says hit me and the sadist says no, so I am kind of hoping they don't get it," he said. In February, the Pentagon charged six of the 9/11 conspirators, including the alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. The others: Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa al Hawsawi -- who the government claims is a key financier for the attacks -- and Mohammed al Kahtani, who is alleged to have been the 20th hijacker on United flight 93 but was denied entry into the United States at the Orlando International Airport. Mukasey told the London audience that he would not speak to the legality of the death penalty, saying, "We have rather a different society, we have rather different traditions" in the United States. The European Union, of which the United Kingdom is a member, is opposed to the use of capital punishment in all cases. Of those charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, "one of them at least is proud enough of it to have written to his wife that he thinks he is innocent because it was only 3,000," Mukasey said. "If those are not poster children for the death penalty, I don't know who is." Story US to Seek Death Penalty in 9/11 CaseMukasey made clear the statements are his personal opinion, and heavily qualified them. "In a way, I kind of hope, from a personal standpoint, and I can say this because the military commissions will be run by the Department of Defense not by the Justice Department -- although we are participating with them, and helping them in the prosecution, but it will be run by the Department of Defense," he said. Still, the statement seems at odds with Bush administration policy that broadly supports the death penalty. The record suggests the administration believes capital punishment is the most appropriate penalty for terrorists convicted of killing Americans. AG Opinion: No Execution for 9/11 Plotters

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/DOJ/sto...4453816&page=1

I hope they don't get the death penalty either, but this is because I am unconditionally opposed to the death penalty.

While I am not unconditionally opposed to the death penalty, I do believe this would be the "easy" way out for them. Let them rot in jail. Now, if only we could put them in a cell with "Bubba", without them being killed. Would Allah still love them after they'd taken up the butt?

I agree with MJ. I think the whole "you can't kill, but if you do something horrible, we can kill you and it's okay" argument seems stupid to me. There are some circumstances of course that it could apply to be okay in my eyes, but this is not one of them.

If you kill someone then you should be killed. An eye for an eye, I say.

I think this would drastically decrease the amount of murders out there.

That may be true, but you also have to rule in stuff like accidental murders, vehicular manslaughter, wreckless driving that casued a wreck which resulted in death. What if you kill somebody in self defense? There's millions of variables that makes it too complicated on either side.

Hammurabi's Code is outdated...

An eye for an eye just leaves the whole world blind.

That may be true, but you also have to rule in stuff like accidental murders, vehicular manslaughter, wreckless driving that casued a wreck which resulted in death. What if you kill somebody in self defense? There's millions of variables that makes it too complicated on either side.

I'm talking about cold-blooded murder where it has been proven in the court of law. If you willingly take somebody's life, yours should be taken, too. How would that not decrease the amount of 1st and 2nd degree murders? If people know they will be lethally punished for murder, why would they go through with it in the first place?

How would that not decrease the amount of 1st and 2nd degree murders? If people know they will be lethally punished for murder, why would they go through with it in the first place?

Couldn't you just give them life in jail, wouldn't that be the same decrease in Murders.

There are so many technicalities and loopholes in the 'life in jail' sentence. Announcing that one will be lethally punished should he/she take a life is a much stronger stance than life in jail.

I know what you're saying, and we're going to disagree and probably never change each others minds about it, I just feel that if you're going to outlaw murdering people, then don't by hypocritical in the judicial system by doing so as punishment. I think most inmates would agree that Life in jail (or multipule sentances of it) are worse than just being axed off.

Tell that to a daughter who's mother was raped, tortured and dismembered.



In this case I don't nessicarily think the death penalty is proper, but I am just certain that there is cases in which the death penalty is justified.


Your arguement is that the government should not be allowed to kill someone for commiting a crime or crimes, when it is a crime to kill someone outside of the government.

Then by this reasoning why the fuck is it ok for the government to steal earned income from working people to give it to people that do not earn it. When all along if it was a private organization doing this someone would be imprisioned.

I smell a double standard.

Then by this reasoning why the fuck is it ok for the government to steal earned income from working people to give it to people that do not earn it. When all along if it was a private organization doing this someone would be imprisioned.

That argument would take this thread into an entirely different direction.. And it's not stealing. I mean if you don't like police, fire departments, public libraries, paved roads and public schooling then give up your citizenship and go live in fucking Congo,Africa

They earn it bro. They do not apply to my rant, but you are right that's OT.

I say go old school, put a sponge on there head and zap away!

I'm against the death penalty. Never is it right to take another human's life. (but if it's an accident or in self defense it isn't a crime.)

Why should the law commit a crime?

Does not compute.

Tell that to a daughter who's mother was raped, tortured and dismembered.

If you're looking to an emotionally traumatized person for logic and sanity, you're looking in the wrong place. And when dealing with something as grave as capital punishment, arguments should be rational rather than purely emotional.

If you're looking to an emotionally traumatized person for logic and sanity, you're looking in the wrong place. And when dealing with something as grave as capital punishment, arguments should be rational rather than purely emotional.

Good point, but tell us how it would be irrational to sentence to death a person who raped, plundered, and murdered a person or persons, dna/video/ eye witness evidence, and a confession to said crimes. Agreed life in prison would be far more tortureous for them, but why should we spend the money to keep a person like that alive(questionmark, another keyboard dead)

That may be true, but you also have to rule in stuff like accidental murders, vehicular manslaughter, wreckless driving that casued a wreck which resulted in death. What if you kill somebody in self defense? There's millions of variables that makes it too complicated on either side.

I agree. If someone was pointing a gun at my face and was about to kill me and I have a knife in my hand, I would stab him in my self defense. Afterwords, I would be killed for killing the man that would have killed me. Does that make any sense?