U.S.

Davidian Case Still Divides

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 20, 2000 / 2:26 PM EDT / CBS

A Texas jury Friday recommended a federal judge clear the U.S. government of blame in the 1993 Branch Davidian siege, but as CBS News Correspondent Bob McNamara reports, the central questions of the seven-year-old case remain.

From the start, the crucial issue has been whether federal agents used excessive force in the initial raid and in later efforts to end the 51-day siege, or merely reacted to an ambush by cult members.

Even after the jury spoke Friday, those issues remained.

U.S. Attorney Michael Bradford said, "David Koresh and the Davidians were waiting to have a confrontation with the government" while surviving Branch Davidian Graham Craddick said he was still "quite convinced that the agents themselves started the shooting."

And the court is at least a few weeks away from definitively settling the issue. The jury's decision, delivered after only two-and-a-half hours of deliberation, was only an advisory opinion to the judge in the $675 million wrongful death lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Walter Smith Jr., will decide and deliver the actual verdict himself sometime later, possibly in August, and has reserved the most contentious issue—whether federal agents shot at the Davidians at the end of the siege—for his own inquiry.

The trial has centered on events that began on Feb. 28, 1993, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to search the complex and arrest sect leader David Koresh on illegal weapons charges.

When gunfire erupted, six Davidians and four ATF agents were killed.

A standoff ensued, ending on April 19, 1993, with the deaths of sect men, women and children from either gunshots or fire as the compound burned to the ground.

Among the evidence the jury considered were audio tapes made inside the compound in which unidentified Branch Davidians were heard asking "start the fire?" and "should we light the fire?"

The jurors also saw home videos meant to soften the image of a sect often portrayed as suicidal.

Government lawyers presented autopsy findings on 21 adults, children and one infant who died in the complex. Twenty died of gunshot wounds and a toddler died of a stab wound to the chest—proof, they said, that Davidians were suicidal and started the fires.

But plaintiffs said FBI tanks engaged in a tear-gassing operation may have contributed to or caused the three fires by knocking over kerosene lanterns inside the complex. The plaintiffs also said the FBI was negligent when it used the tanks to prematurely demolish the building, violating a plan approved by Attorney General Janet Reno.

The government insisted the demolition was only a result of trying to create paths so tanks could inject tear gas into hard-to-reach parts of the building.

The jury found that the government did not use excessive force during the raid and was not negligent in using the tanks.

Smith decided an advisory jury would hear the latest case ven though one is not required under federal law. In the1994 criminal trial that Smith oversaw, the jury found eight Branch Davidians guilty of voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges but acquitted 11 sect members of conspiring to murder federal agents.

"He has a great deal of latitude. He can either rule for or against us, regardless of what this advisory jury has to say," Bradford said of the judge.

Separate from this case, Reno last September appointed former Missouri Sen. John Danforth as special counsel to resolve unanswered questions about the final hours of the standoff.

A spokeswoman for Danforth, Jan Diltz, would not comment on Friday's decision, nor would she speculate on when Danforth might conclude his probe.