They’re treating him with kid gloves because they’re trying to avoid an appeal. They know he’s going to appeal whatever verdicts he gets. But you can only appeal a conviction on the basis of a mistrial. Basically, you need to prove that your trial wasn’t fair. And one way to do that is to show that the judge was biased against you. So they’re avoiding giving him any ammo for his inevitable appeal.

Because higher courts get more and more conservative as they go up, so his chances of getting a conviction overturned increase with each subsequent appeal. And if it makes it all the way to the SCOTUS, they’ll gladly light the constitution on fire to let him walk. So their best chance of having anything stick is to stop the appeals process before it can even begin, by refusing to give him any basis for an appeal. They’re doing everything they can to treat him with kid gloves, so the appeals court can’t go “yeah maybe the lower courts treated you unfairly.” It means that if a conviction happens, it’ll truly be ironclad.

Sooo… you’re saying that negotiating with terrorists is the best thing to do here?