"Failure is not an option," Eric Holder declared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, regarding the civilian criminal prosecution of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. A post by Mike Scarcella at BLT is here. In addition, President Obama predicted both a conviction and a death sentence, Mark Sherman reports for AP.
I didn't like the "failure is not an option" expression even when it was new and arguably clever. It has grown even more irritating with age and triteness. Few people choose to fail, and sometimes failure happens despite every possible effort. "All the king's horses and all the king's men..." and all that. What he means, I suppose, is that every possible effort will be made to avoid failure. But will every possible effort from the executive branch alone, which is all he can directly control, be enough?
First, what is "failure" in this case? Anything less than a death sentence is failure. The prosecution of Zacharias Moussaoui was a failure. Can Holder guarantee that the KSM trial will not end like Moussaoui's, despite the President's prediction. No.
As noted in this post, the single-juror veto rule in federal civilian capital cases presents a grave danger of failure. The federal system can and should adopt the California rule that the jury verdict on penalty must be unanimous one way or the other, just as it is on guilt. That requires an act of Congress. If Holder is serious about making every possible effort to avoid failure, he should be pressing hard right now for such an act.
I didn't like the "failure is not an option" expression even when it was new and arguably clever. It has grown even more irritating with age and triteness. Few people choose to fail, and sometimes failure happens despite every possible effort. "All the king's horses and all the king's men..." and all that. What he means, I suppose, is that every possible effort will be made to avoid failure. But will every possible effort from the executive branch alone, which is all he can directly control, be enough?
First, what is "failure" in this case? Anything less than a death sentence is failure. The prosecution of Zacharias Moussaoui was a failure. Can Holder guarantee that the KSM trial will not end like Moussaoui's, despite the President's prediction. No.
As noted in this post, the single-juror veto rule in federal civilian capital cases presents a grave danger of failure. The federal system can and should adopt the California rule that the jury verdict on penalty must be unanimous one way or the other, just as it is on guilt. That requires an act of Congress. If Holder is serious about making every possible effort to avoid failure, he should be pressing hard right now for such an act.
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