Trial turns to impact on Sept. 11 orphans

The jury said Monday that Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- The courtroom screen showed a tiny girl, only 21/2, with long, dark hair in a red dress that flowed to her ankles. Around her neck was a long, blue ribbon attached to an object hanging below her knees.
A burly, balding man in uniform -- James Smith, a 21-year veteran of the New York Police Department -- explained to jurors Thursday in the sentencing trial of Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that the girl was his daughter, Patricia, on Dec. 4, 2001.
"That was Valor Day, when the New York Police Department hands out medals," Smith said in a wavering voice. "She's wearing the medal they awarded Moira, the department's highest honor, the Medal of Honor."
Moira -- his wife and Patricia's mother -- also was a police officer. On Sept. 11, 2001, she was bringing a woman with asthma down from the third floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center when it collapsed on them.
A stricken-looking female juror pulled out a tissue and wiped her eyes. The lip and brow of the man in front of her in the jury box quavered; he appeared near tears.
Then the cop wiped his own eyes.
4 children's lives
The stories and photos of four young children, all of whom lost parents in the Sept. 11 attacks, brought witnesses to tears and visibly affected jurors as the second phase of Moussaoui's death penalty trial began Thursday.
The 37-year-old Frenchman pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with Al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings. On Monday, the jurors ruled him eligible for the death penalty even though he was in jail in Minnesota on Sept. 11.
They ruled that lies he told federal agents a month before the attacks led directly to at least one death that day by keeping agents from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.
Now they must decide whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison.
Prosecutors played videos of two hijacked jetliners hitting the gleaming World Trade Center towers. They showed videos of people plunging more than 80 stories to their deaths and punctuated their presentation with family photos of loved ones.
Each hour the emotional impact grew.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani retold the now-familiar tale of his own harrowing experience in debris-choked lower Manhattan on Sept. 11. But it was not until he spoke of the daughter of one of his closest aides, Beth Petrone Hatton, that Giuliani's voice quaked and broke. Firefighter Terence S. Hatton -- who earned 19 medals in 21 years -- died without knowing his wife was pregnant.
One female juror looked stricken. The rest hung motionless on Giuliani's every word.
All eyes on ex-mayor
Even Moussaoui, who had affected a look of boredom during the showing of video of falling bodies, watched the ex-mayor intently as he described Terry Hatton, who was born May 15, 2002. Her picture with Giuliani flashed on the screen.
"Terry's going to grow up without a father ... without a very special father," Giuliani said. "You can't replace that. ... There's no way that money, camps and scholarships, which is very important and which we raised, can replace that." Members of the courtroom audience dabbed their eyes with tissue and sniffled.
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