Throw the Switch

Captain Obvious to the courtroom, please:

The battle over Moussaoui's mental health has begun in earnest. A defense psychologist, Xavier Amador, testified Monday that Zacarias Moussaoui is a paranoid schizophrenic who suffers from delusions.

Of course he's a nutcase! He conspired to kill thousands of people and thinks some deity told him to do it. It doesn't get any nuttier than that. But it's no reason not to turn his little pea-brain into a charcoal briquette.

The insanity defense in capital murder cases ("he's crazy, so we can't kill him") is one of the more loopy ideas ever to emerge from the American justice system. The logic flaw is equivalent to saying we can't put a mugger in jail because he had his lunch money stolen as a kid. The events may or may not be connected psychologically--but he's still a thief.