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Esseghaier told her about his childhood, about God and about the plot that led to his arrest and conviction — which he did not deny. He told her of his desire to create a single Islamic state, of his refusal to masturbate, and of the parallels between himself and the prophets Jesus and Joseph. “He had no apparent filter,” Ramshaw later observed, “and talked about whatever was on his mind, from his religious beliefs to his wet dreams.”

At the end of the four days, and after consulting a host of trial transcripts and interviews, she came to a stark conclusion: Esseghaier, the man touted on his arrest in 2013 as a ringleader and terrorist recruiter, was suffering from a psychotic disorder, she wrote in a report to the court, and was most likely schizophrenic.

He was delusional and believed that his soul would be taken to God when he was 33, like Jesus, and that the other prisoners weren’t prisoners at all, but filmmakers “colluding with the officers to make a movie about him.”

Wednesday, Esseghaier and Jaser are due back in court for a sentencing hearing. Both face the possibility of life in prison.

But Ramshaw’s report now hangs over the process. It raises questions not only about the sentencing, but about the trial itself, about the decision to allow Esseghaier to defend himself, to try the two men together, and the thorny legal issues that arise when a man’s sanity comes into question this late in the process.

The report raises broader questions, too, more fundamental ones, about terrorism and insanity and justice, and whether any of us should care, given what Esseghaier tried, however ineptly, to do. He is insane, in other words, of that there’s little doubt. But whether that should matter at this stage is a much trickier question.