Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 26, 2006 22:01:39 GMT -5
In the much-talked-about "post-9/11 climate," the smart money might have bet that a man accused of having a hand in the infamous attacks on the United States would be put to death by a trial jury.
When the recent conspiracy convictions against Zacarias Moussaoui did not result in an execution, two Western Massachusetts men had more than passing interest. The parents of Robert and Michael Meeropol were executed in 1953 on a charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. And beyond their many years of studying that case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the Meeropol brothers have become opponents of the death penalty in general.
Where the cases of Moussaoui and the Rosenbergs run parallel is that they took place amid political passions about cleansing society of threats.
"The fears of today were terrorism. The fears of then were communism," said Richard Deiter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in New York.
Direct connections to actual deaths were missing in the Rosenberg case, Deiter said. And had the 9/11 plot been a bust - had there been no deaths. Moussaoui would not have faced the death penalty for lying to federal investigators about what he knew.
Yet Moussaoui was spared in 2006 and the Rosenbergs were electrocuted in 1953. Jurors concluded that Moussaoui participated little enough in 9/11 that he should not die. And in the current atmosphere of fear, Robert Meeropol of Easthampton says people's increasing doubts about the death penalty in recent years may have made some difference.
"Fewer and fewer death penalties are being handed down," he said, even though courts universally disqualify anyone who says they could not impose capital punishment from juries in death-penalty cases.
He cited increasing numbers of wrongful death penalty convictions that have been exposed using DNA and other evidence in the last 10 years. And in an interview this month, he also pointed to the nation's longer-running regrets about excesses of the McCarthy anticommunist purges since the time of his parents' execution.
"As time went on, the people who participated in that didn't end up as the shining lights in history," Robert Meeropol, 59, said. "Judges looking at this today may say, 'I don't want to be like that.' And all it takes is 1 or 2 jurors on a jury of 12 to have those thoughts."
"There are a lot of similarities" between the Moussaoui and Rosenberg eras, he added, "but what strikes me more is the differences. There are many more voices raised against what's happening today."
Michael Meeropol, 63, said both conspiracy cases show the federal government's inability to find and convict people who truly were responsible, either for leaking A-bomb secrets or carrying out the 9/11 attacks.
"In a political case (like the Moussaoui case)," Michael Meeropol said in an e-mail interview, "the government can be very tempted to use the conspiracy net to 'demonstrate' that they are really on top of things - when in fact they're covering up for their incompetence.
"Moussaoui was a nobody who al-Qaida didn't even trust - he puffed up his own position in order to 'martyr' himself, and the government tried to convince the public (and the jury as well) that if Moussaoui had told the truth, some aspects of 9/11 would have been prevented. On the contrary, it was the government's failure to connect the dots that prevented them from catching at least one planeload of hijackers in advance ... "
It has been widely and incorrectly reported that the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage rather than the actual charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. The Meeropols, whose surname stems from adoptive parents, do not proclaim their parents were innocent of all they were accused of, nor do they conceed their guilt. They insist the Rosenbergs' conduct did not result in the leaking of the A-bomb to the Soviets and that their execution was not legally justifiable.
The brothers said that at various times they understood and even felt the impulse toward revenge that also drives death-penalty backers. To Robert, "it's destructive, and it makes things worse. That's true on a social level, and that's true on a personal level." The result for him, he said, as to channel those feelings into something positive. For the past 16 years he has headed the nonprofit Rosenberg Fund for Children. The charity assists children caught up in the targeting of activist parents by
governments.
"I would say when you combine governmental power with those emotions" of fear, anger and rage, Robert said, "you create the most dangerous situation that you could on earth."
He added, "I think in this world it is so basically pragmatic to have this attitude because, you know, (if) we start going around having this attitude of revenge, Iraq is not just going to be Iraq ... you're going to bring Iraq home sooner or later, and I don't think anybody wants that."
Personal revenge is not an effective way to make public policy, added his brother Michael, professor of economics at Springfield's Western New England College. "My personal desire for revenge is countered by the power of society to not put into my hands the decision as to what should be done with the person who has wronged me.
"I think nothing would be better," he said, "than to force Osama bin Laden to live his entire life in an American prison, being visited regularly by Muslim imams who tell him with specific Koranic references to his actions that he is definitely going to burn in hell."
(source: The Republican)
When the recent conspiracy convictions against Zacarias Moussaoui did not result in an execution, two Western Massachusetts men had more than passing interest. The parents of Robert and Michael Meeropol were executed in 1953 on a charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. And beyond their many years of studying that case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the Meeropol brothers have become opponents of the death penalty in general.
Where the cases of Moussaoui and the Rosenbergs run parallel is that they took place amid political passions about cleansing society of threats.
"The fears of today were terrorism. The fears of then were communism," said Richard Deiter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in New York.
Direct connections to actual deaths were missing in the Rosenberg case, Deiter said. And had the 9/11 plot been a bust - had there been no deaths. Moussaoui would not have faced the death penalty for lying to federal investigators about what he knew.
Yet Moussaoui was spared in 2006 and the Rosenbergs were electrocuted in 1953. Jurors concluded that Moussaoui participated little enough in 9/11 that he should not die. And in the current atmosphere of fear, Robert Meeropol of Easthampton says people's increasing doubts about the death penalty in recent years may have made some difference.
"Fewer and fewer death penalties are being handed down," he said, even though courts universally disqualify anyone who says they could not impose capital punishment from juries in death-penalty cases.
He cited increasing numbers of wrongful death penalty convictions that have been exposed using DNA and other evidence in the last 10 years. And in an interview this month, he also pointed to the nation's longer-running regrets about excesses of the McCarthy anticommunist purges since the time of his parents' execution.
"As time went on, the people who participated in that didn't end up as the shining lights in history," Robert Meeropol, 59, said. "Judges looking at this today may say, 'I don't want to be like that.' And all it takes is 1 or 2 jurors on a jury of 12 to have those thoughts."
"There are a lot of similarities" between the Moussaoui and Rosenberg eras, he added, "but what strikes me more is the differences. There are many more voices raised against what's happening today."
Michael Meeropol, 63, said both conspiracy cases show the federal government's inability to find and convict people who truly were responsible, either for leaking A-bomb secrets or carrying out the 9/11 attacks.
"In a political case (like the Moussaoui case)," Michael Meeropol said in an e-mail interview, "the government can be very tempted to use the conspiracy net to 'demonstrate' that they are really on top of things - when in fact they're covering up for their incompetence.
"Moussaoui was a nobody who al-Qaida didn't even trust - he puffed up his own position in order to 'martyr' himself, and the government tried to convince the public (and the jury as well) that if Moussaoui had told the truth, some aspects of 9/11 would have been prevented. On the contrary, it was the government's failure to connect the dots that prevented them from catching at least one planeload of hijackers in advance ... "
It has been widely and incorrectly reported that the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage rather than the actual charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. The Meeropols, whose surname stems from adoptive parents, do not proclaim their parents were innocent of all they were accused of, nor do they conceed their guilt. They insist the Rosenbergs' conduct did not result in the leaking of the A-bomb to the Soviets and that their execution was not legally justifiable.
The brothers said that at various times they understood and even felt the impulse toward revenge that also drives death-penalty backers. To Robert, "it's destructive, and it makes things worse. That's true on a social level, and that's true on a personal level." The result for him, he said, as to channel those feelings into something positive. For the past 16 years he has headed the nonprofit Rosenberg Fund for Children. The charity assists children caught up in the targeting of activist parents by
governments.
"I would say when you combine governmental power with those emotions" of fear, anger and rage, Robert said, "you create the most dangerous situation that you could on earth."
He added, "I think in this world it is so basically pragmatic to have this attitude because, you know, (if) we start going around having this attitude of revenge, Iraq is not just going to be Iraq ... you're going to bring Iraq home sooner or later, and I don't think anybody wants that."
Personal revenge is not an effective way to make public policy, added his brother Michael, professor of economics at Springfield's Western New England College. "My personal desire for revenge is countered by the power of society to not put into my hands the decision as to what should be done with the person who has wronged me.
"I think nothing would be better," he said, "than to force Osama bin Laden to live his entire life in an American prison, being visited regularly by Muslim imams who tell him with specific Koranic references to his actions that he is definitely going to burn in hell."
(source: The Republican)