TRIALS: Life for a Traitor

John David Provoo, traitor to the U.S. (TIME, Feb. 23), stood up for sentencing last week before Judge Gregory F. Noonan of the U.S. district court in Manhattan. Tearfully, he cried: “Your Honor . . . I love my country.” Said Judge Noonan: “Traitors all are to be despised.” Yet, because of Provoo’s “great emotionalinstability,” the court spared him the extreme penalty of death, sentenced him, instead, to life imprisonment.