AP: Lone juror kept Moussaoui alive - report
A single holdout kept the jury from handing a death sentence to Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in this country in the 9/11 attacks.
But that juror never explained his vote, said the foreman of the jury that sentenced the confessed al-Qaida conspirator to life in prison last week.
The foreman, a math teacher in Northern Virginia, told The Washington Post that jurors voted three times — 11-1, 10-2 and 10-2 — in favor of the death penalty on the three terrorism charges that each qualified Moussaoui for execution.
On April 26, the third day of deliberations, the jury's frustrations reached a critical point because of several 11-1 votes on one charge. But no one could figure out who was casting the dissenting vote, the foreman said, because that person didn't identify himself during any discussion — and each of the votes were done using anonymous ballots.
"But there was no yelling," she said in an interview for the Post's Friday editions. "It was as if a heavy cloud of doom had fallen over the deliberation room, and many of us realized that all our beliefs and our conclusions were being vetoed by one person. ... We tried to discuss the pros and cons. But I would have to say that most of the arguments we heard around the deliberation table were" in favor of the death penalty.
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