Should Ashcroft be going for the death penalty for an attempted crime that was never completed?

That's what's happening in the trial of "Brian Regan, the former Air Force sergeant accused of attempted espionage on behalf of Iraq, Libya and China, and of mishandling national defense information." ABC Reporter Beverly Lumpkin notes,

Here are the two most significant facts about this case:

Regan is charged only with attempted espionage; and yet

The government is seeking the death penalty if he is convicted.

This, despite the fact that since the death penalty was reinstated for espionage in 1994, there have been 10 people convicted of completed acts of espionage, some gravely serious, for whom nevertheless the government did not seek death. "

The defense argues:

Why is the government so adamant that a man whose letters were so replete with spelling errors that they can't be read with a straight face, a man only charged with attempted espionage, should nevertheless face death if convicted? The defense team has made many impassioned arguments about this point. In one pleading, the defense wrote, "If the government has its way, Regan will be the first of scores of persons convicted of espionage even to be considered for execution since 1953, when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death. … [T]he damage Regan is alleged to have caused is dramatically less than the harm caused by recent spies Robert Hanssen, Harold Nicholson and Ana Montes, and significantly less than that caused by every other person charged with espionage since enactment of the federal death penalty."

The case is in the jury selection (voir dire) stage now.

Update: Digby agrees this is overkill (sorry for the pun) and asks, what's next, the death penalty for double parking? He also points out, if the espionage was never committed, how can there be any victims?