Minutes ago, a sentence in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial was announced and it is . . . life in prison. Jurors rejected the death penalty even for someone involved in the most horrendous crime in American history. Someone completely unrepentant, in fact gloating over the pain that he had caused on the stand in court., was not given the ultimate punishment. Maybe our country truly is moving away from an inexpensive and inefficient public policy.

Doubtless, in the coming hours and days pundits from across the spectrum and across the country will offer their take on the sentence, what the prosecution did wrong, what the defense did right, what testimony was the most convincing, etc., but let TCASK be the first to offer this straight-forward and simple explanation: Moussaoui had good lawyers.

How's that for simple. Across the country, the people on death row are not those who, like Moussaoui, are accused of the most heinous and horrible crimes. They're not universally those, again like Moussaoui, who are unrepentent of their crimes. They are the poor. Nationwide, 98% of the nearly 3500 death row inmates couldn't afford their own attorneys at trial, and here in Tennessee, we do even better than that. In fact we're perfect. Not a single one of the 103 people on Tennessee's death row could afford their own attorney at trial. So the average defendant has under-trained and underpaid attorneys. Moussaoui had the best the legal profession has to offer.

So, yes, some pundits will point out that the presentation of the FBI incompetance was the key. Some will say that presenting Moussaoui as a delusional schizophrenic convinced the jury to spare him. But I guarantee that what they won't mention is why so many others, without counsel that knows or is prepared and funded enough to make these motions, do receive a death sentence. So you heard it here first.