THIS IS A GREAT TESTIMONIAL TO THE RULE OF LAW IN AMERICA

I stopped keeping track of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial before it was finished, so I was pleasantly surprised to come across this report by the AP.

First US trial of 9/11 case was full of surprises
By MATTHEW BARAKAT and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writers – Tue Nov 17, 9:50 pm ET

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Zacarias Moussaoui was a clown who could not keep his mouth shut, according to his old al-Qaida boss, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But Moussaoui was surprisingly tame when tried for the 9/11 attacks — never turning the courtroom into the circus of anti-U.S. tirades that some fear Mohammed will create at his trial in New York.

No one was more surprised than Moussaoui himself: At the end he concluded an al-Qaida member like him could get a fair trial in a U.S. court.

"I had thought that I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11," Moussaoui said in an appeal deposition taken after he was sentenced to life in prison. "(B)ut after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial."

It's hard to imagine a more powerful endorsement of our system.