Should al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui live or die?
The jury returns for a fourth day of deliberations on Thursday. In the trial’s first phase, the jury found Moussaoui eligible for capital punishment, concluding that his lies to federal agents in August 2001 “directly resulted” in some of the 2,973 deaths in the September 11, 2001, attacks. The nine men and three women who delivered the first verdict will determine the second. (Watch the jury get the case after weeks of harrowing testimony — 1:52) Once again, the panel will address three conspiracies Moussaoui admitted in his guilty plea last year: to commit terrorist acts transcending national boundaries, to destroy aircraft and to use weapons of mass destruction, in this case turning planes into missiles. The jurors first must address whether prosecutors proved three “aggravating” factors, which would point toward the death penalty. They must decide whether Moussaoui’s role in the hijacking conspiracy created a grave risk of death to people besides the 9/11 victims; that he acted in
