Moussaoui Sentencing Deliberations on Hold

04/27/2006

Juror Fails to Show for Morning Session After Falling Ill

By Timothy Dwyer, Jerry Markon and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 27, 2006; 11:39 AM

A federal jury weighing whether Zacarias Moussaoui should be executed for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was sent home this morning without reaching a verdict, after a juror failed to show up at the Alexandria courthouse because he was ill.

The panel will resume deliberations tomorrow morning if the ailing juror feels up to it, U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said. The group of nine men and three women have spent 16 hours deliberating since getting the case Monday afternoon.

The absent juror apparently told court officials he was not feeling well on Wednesday afternoon, but said he hoped to see a doctor and obtain the appropriate medication. He was not able to secure a medical appointment until this afternoon.

The defendant remained at the defense table after jurors were led out of the courtroom at about 9:15 a.m. and let loose one of his trademark outbursts, shouting “Moussaoui’s biological warfare!” to those onlookers who remained.

Moussaoui, who was sitting in jail on immigration violations on Sept. 11, 2001, pleaded guilty to involvement in the al-Qaeda-orchestrated attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

Jurors in his sentencing trial, which began in February, found last month that Moussaoui was eligible for the death penalty because he failed to tell federal agents that the attacks were being planned when he was arrested in August 2001.

They now must decide whether he should be put to death.

Moussaoui, a 37-year-old French national, is the only person convicted in the United States in connection with the attacks. Courtroom onlookers have taken to searching for even the tiniest clues about how deliberations are going in the closely watched case.

This morning, several people noted that one juror who normally wears a jacket and tie to court every day was clad instead in jeans and a golf shirt.

Those observers speculated that the jury must still be a long way from completing the complex, 42-page verdict form it must follow in rendering its decision.

The man in the golf shirt, they said, would not have dressed so informally had he expected to be called from the jury room into Brinkema’s courtroom.