What life in prison will be for Moussaoui

[Mike Daniels]

23 hours solitary confinement

1 hour of exercise

Contact only with guards - no contact with fellow prisoners

2 showers a week

all furnishings in cell made of concrete with thin mattress on bed fixture

No outside contact

-----------------------------------------------------

Every day for the rest of his life.

I have a feeling he's going to rethink his smug-ass "I won" post-verdict statement after a few weeks.

[RebelOne]

1. Also, I heard on the news that he will have a TV,

but it will only be tuned to religious and educational channels.

[Mike Daniels]

5. Also, won't be able to attend religious services

but will have them piped into his cell through speakers.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[bbernardini]

2. I suspect he won't be in solitary confinement very long.

Because he'll be dead. Maybe it's just me (although I doubt it), but I have a feeling he's going to have some kind of "accident" not long after he gets to prison.

[Champion Jack]

3. Yeah, he'll hang himself with a concrete rope.....

[movie_girl99]

20. i said the same thing to my husband last night

that he wouldn't make it very long in prison before someone shanked him.

[dysfunctional press]

23. the only ones who could shank him would be the guards...

at the supermax, inmates have ZERO contact with each other- and they get wheeled from their cell to the shower and/or exercise area in a rolling cage.
i think that john gotti is in the same place.

[REP]

4. How Can Anyone Take Anything He Says Seriously?

Not directing this at the OP at all - this has been bugging me all day.

I don't think he had much, if anything, to do with the September 11 attacks. I think he really wishes he does, and that he's a nutjob. I don't care what he says - just like I don't care what the guy talking to his sandwich says about anything. They both have mental health problems, and their utterances do not need to be taken seriously.

Putting him in prison for life was the best decision. Not because it didn't grant him his wishes of self-important martyrdom - again, who cares? - but because he had so little to do with anything, anything else would have been just wrong. A little thorazine while he's in wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

[Renew Deal]

6. The guy was too crazy for Al Queda

I think that says something.

[Mike Daniels]

9. I think he's a wannabe - even the leadership thought he was joke

However, it does seem he was training for something since he apparently had no interest in learning how to land the plane during flight school.

Same facility he'll be going to is apparently home to Terry (?)Nichols (Oklahoma City bombing), Richard Reid (shoe bomber), and the Uni-bomber.

[skipos]

7. That sounds worse than the death penalty in my opinion. nt

[Mike Daniels]

10. That's why I don't think he's going to think he "won" for very long

[MadHound]

16. Frankly I don't think he considers this verdict a victory at all

He was a wannabe, and he was wanting to go out in a blaze of martyrdom. Instead age and time are going to slowly where him down and out until he shuffles off this mortal coil with a whimper.

The man was wanting to get the DP, he was begging for it, this was his big chance. Instead, he was handed ignominity.

[AussieDave]

11. I think he's perfectly aware of what's in store for him

On the NewsHour tonight, Neil Lewis of the New York Times said, amongst other things, "But when the jury forewoman gave Judge Leonie Brinkema the form, and she read that he (Moussaoui) was not to be executed, he seemed stunned and numb by it all. Several minutes later afterwards, when he left, he raised his fists in kind of a victory gesture and said, "America, you lose, and I won."

"Stunned and numb" - Moussaoui was fully expecting to be given the death penalty, and to become a martyr. His statement on leaving court was just bravado - his worst nightmare has now come true.

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. Keep believing that

if it makes you feel better.

He gamed the system but good...made the jurors think he wanted the DP so that they'd give him the opposite. Nothing else explains his bizarre behavior on the witness stand. Needless to say, the DO shouldnb't have been on the table in the first place, Moussaoui being a total non-entity with respect to 9/11, and just a convenient villain for the Justice Department.

When are we going to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed for his role in 9/11, I wonder? Oh, that's right. Never. The supposed "mastermind" of the operation is in custody, but will not be tried. That should tell you everything you ever need to know about the Moussaoui farce...er, I mean...trial...

[AussieDave]

30. Well, that certainly put me in MY place.......

[randr]

12. One of my thoughts on 9/11

As the day unfolded I kept thinking how much I wish Tim McVie had not been put to death. I wanted him to see what type of person he was and to witness the consequences of such action.
I now hope Mossaoui lives to see the defeat of terrorists of all breeds and the establishment of peace on our planet.

[Virginia Dare]

14. I had the same thoughts....

the best punishment for McVeigh would have been to let him rot in jail for the rest of his life....because he clearly wanted to be put to death, it was in essence a victory for him.

[Astrad]

13. What is sad about this is that

bush deserves the same treatment: 23 hours solitary, 1 hour of exercise, no contact with other prisoners. He needs this so he can meditate on what he has done to the world with his illegal invasion and so much more. He's at least as deluded as Moussaoui, maybe more so. But we also know that there is no way under heaven that that is going to happen. So it's hard to look at this case and call it 'justice'.

[wakeme2008]

15. here is from a blog

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/001680.html

In the arid, remote high desert, the triangular, two-story, high-tech ADX is almost invisible, as are its 417 male inmates. Many spend 23 of every 24 hours double-locked in an 8-by-12-foot cell behind a steel door and barred grate. Some spend the day's remaining hour alone as well, exercising in a small concrete recreation area and subjected to strip searches upon leaving and re-entering their cells. Except for the guards, there is no direct human contact.

Here is some more, from this article on a classroom website:

Unparalled in America, it is the only prison specifically designed to keep every occupant in near-total solitary confinement, rarely allowing inmates to see other prisoners.

....The ADX has a three-year program that keeps inmates in their cells 23 hours a day for the first year, then gradually ``socializes'' them with other inmates and staff. In their last year, prisoners can be out of their cells from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and eat meals in a shared dining room, rather than having food shoved through a slot in their steel cell door.

...The average sentence is 36 years....

It is spent, typically, in a 12-by-7- foot cell. Beds, desks and stools are made of poured concrete. Toilets have a valve that shuts off the water if an inmate tries to flood his cell by stopping it up. Sinks have no taps, just buttons -- inmates used to unscrew the taps and use the plumbing parts as shanks.

A 42-inch window, 4 inches wide, looks out on a one-man concrete recreation yard, which prisoners with good behavior can eventually use.

The ADX goes to great lengths to bring everything into the cells -- books, food, television -- so that inmates never need to leave. A 12- inch black-and-white TV in each cell shows closed-circuit classes in psychology, education, anger management, parenting and literacy. Religious services of numerous denominations are piped in from a small chapel, where prison officials display for the videocamera the religious objects appropriate for a given faith.

Haney, the Santa Cruz psychologist who has testified as an expert witness in cases involving supermax confinement, said the effect of isolation in places like Florence is dramatic. Prisoners ``become extremely depressed and lethargic -- sleeping, lying on their bunks, staring at the ceiling, declining to go out and exercise,'' he said. They begin to lose memory, can't concentrate and suffer severe panic attacks, he said, or become uncontrollably enraged over insignificant things.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

18. The fact that we...

...as a society are willing to subject any human being to this kind of sustained psychological torture serves as compelling testament to the new face of America:

[Name removed]

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[Mr_Jefferson_24]

26. That's your opinion...

...mine is that incarceration should be about protecting society from dangerous individuals, not torturing them.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

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[Mr_Jefferson_24]

29. I agree. And I think...

...being removed from society and placed in incarceration does constitute punishment. I don't believe that people who commit vicious crimes should lead a pampered or easy life in prison, but I also think it's very wrong to take punishment to extremes. 23 hours of solitary a day for years is a form a mental torture. We should be above such a practice. Work and education programs should be the norm in any prison. Temporary stints in solitary should be reserved for prisoners who refuse to cooperate with work and rehab programs. Just my opinion.

[Mike Daniels]

24. Before this turns into a "only in Bush's America" thread

The prison has been in use since 1994. Your new face of America was in effect during the Clinton/Gore years as well.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

28. True. The new face of America...

...was already taking form prior to the Bush administration. I did not mean to suggest otherwise.

[alarimer]

31. How is this not cruel and unusual?

Death is preferable (at least to me it would be).

[NaturalHigh]

17. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

No 72 virgins for this dumbass.

[alcibiades_mystery]

22. Supermax will be finished in ten years, probably ruled unconstitutional

He'll be gradually moved into some high security gen pop at some point.

Made off rather well, I should think, considering the options.

[Mike Daniels]

25. Well, he's likely to live longer while in Supermax.....

because being a "general population" inmate will probably decrease his life expectancy greatly.