Also re Moussaoui coverage, Fox News' Greta Van Susteren has been providing the kind of unique and practiced legal insight so exclusive to Greta--she deserves credit for her multi-faceted assessment of the case and, specifically, of her experience in death penalty cases. Talking to Shep Smith yesterday, she really made me feel like I was in the Alexandria Courthouse, and then it gave me chills:

VAN SUSTEREN (3:48pm - 5/3/06): You know, Shep, I've been in this chair where you sit and wait to find out what happens to your client in a death penalty case. Look, there's really no way to predict.... Both sides are feeling extremely aprehensive. No one knows that verdict right now except for those 12 jurors and they have handed a note to the deputy marshal who then will hand it to the clerk of the courtroom. The judge will then open the note herself and look at it to see what the verdict is, to make sure there's nothing wrong with it, sort of, almost the bookeeping aspect of it. To make sure the verdict is fine. What the judge will then do is either ask the clerk to read the verdict or ask the jury foreperson to read the verdict and will ask Mr. Moussaoui to stand up and face the jury and then the jurors or the clerk will read the jury verdict.

I can tell you because I've been in courtrooms, if the jury decides on death, when you hear the actual words 'death' in the courtroom, it is like no other verdict you have ever heard in your life.... So at this point, everyone is standing by, waiting to hear. No one knows or no one should know what the jury has decided except those 12 people.

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