My job is not one that I would describe as requiring much in the way of physical courage, other than braving the odd paper cut. (Well I once challenged a loud-mouthed guy in a union meeting to step outside -- of course he was 25 years older than me and I knew he was totally and permanently disabled in one shoulder -- but still. . . .) However, I actually managed to be in the same court house as Zacarias Moussaoui on a couple of occasions without pissing my pants, which I guess makes me a death-defying man of steel. I was trying a case in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria when aspects of the death penalty case against Moussaoui were being heard by Judge Leonie Brinkema in the court room across the hall from where my case was being heard. You knew when Moussaoui was going to be in the court house because they would set up a second metal detector just outside of Brinkema's court room.
I have to say it never occurred to me to be afraid or even give it a second thought that he would be in the court. Anyone who litigates for a living is occasionally in the court house when dangerous criminals are there. I recall doing a routine status conference before a federal judge in DC just before he was about to commence a criminal trial against the "Newton Street Crew" a notorious crack trafficking group that had murdered several people in the late eighties and early nineties. The court room had large bullet proof glass partitions set up between the public seating area and the area where the lawyers, judge and jury were seated. More daunting to me was looking at the big blown up street photo exhibits and seeing my own apartment building within the zone of the group's operations. Again, though, I never gave a second thought about my safety as the United States Marshals are pretty damned good at dealing with court room security.
I thus find the right wing hissy fit over Eric Holder's announcement that the 9/11 conspirators will be tried in federal court in NYC to be amazing. The U.S. has demonstrated an ability to safely try and convict numerous terrorists over the years -- including Ramzi Yousef, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, and Richard Reid among others -- as have many other democracies. We have an extremely competent judiciary and top notch court house security. We don't have a history of terrorists escaping from our clutches because they are being tried in civilian court houses.
The quaking fear that grips the manly men of the right is a sight to behold. They seem to think that people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed possess some kind of supernatural powers that make him a threat if he simply enters the United States. (It looks to me like he is a short, chunky middle aged man with a prodigious gift for growing body hair -- I can't really imagine him striking fear in my heart.) Physical and moral cowardice really seem to be the defining characteristics of right wing politicians and pundits.