That's because you don't hear the devotees of St. Pollard the Putupon clamoring to reduce Hanssen's sentence Lol. No, I don't expect it would be Pollard devotees clamoring for that, it would be Hanssen devotees. But for all that - wanna bet that they won't turn up when the case is a few years old? How long was the Hanssen sentence, btw?
There's no such thing as a "harmless" spy against the United States
Bah. Spying goes on all the time, and it's even an "accepted" part of international relations. The US spies, Israel spies, Belgium spies, Britain spies - you get the drift. They all spy on both friends and enemies, and generally nothing whatsoever happens to a caught spy except deportation or exchange.
If shooting spies became in fashion, we'd have a bloodbath.
I know spying goes on all the time, and when the spies get caught, we don't normally have the foreign entitities who benefitted from the spy's treachery so shamelessly lobbying the U.S. government on the convicted spy's behalf. That's not part of the "accepted" rules of engagement. The "everybody does it" defense doesn't wash, either--it's so unprofessional.
The point I was making is that if Hanssen had such an obnoxious Fan Club making light of his treachery and accusing the U.S. government of anti-Catholicism (in his particular case), and saying such ridiculous things, you'd hear a lot more people offering a bullet for Hanssen as well.
Hanssen will suffer the same fate as Pollard. They will both leave their U.S. prison cells in their respective coffins.