U.S.

Oklahoma Jury Convicts Nichols

June 1, 2004 / 10:48 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Nearly a decade after the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols was convicted of 161 state murder charges Wednesday for helping carry out what was then the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. He could get the death sentence he escaped when he was convicted in federal court in the 1990s.

The verdict came only five hours after the jury started deliberating.

Oklahoma prosecutors brought the case with the goal of finally winning a death sentence against Nichols, who is serving a life term on federal charges. The same 12-member jury will now determine Nichols' fate on the state charges: life in prison or death by injection.

"This is probably the least surprising jury verdict in the history of American law. Even before they were selected to serve in this case jurors acknowledged that they knew Nichols had already been convicted in federal court of being involved in the bombing," says CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen.

"Nichols right now is no worse off than he already was — he's serving a life sentence under federal law anyway — and even though he almost certainly will be sentenced to death by this state jury there is no guarantee that the federal courts will allow an execution to proceed in these circumstances," says Cohen.

Prosecutors contended Nichols worked hand in hand with former Army buddy Timothy McVeigh to acquire the ingredients and build the fuel-and-fertilizer bomb in a twisted plot to avenge the government siege in Waco, Texas, exactly two years earlier.

The April 19, 1995, blast at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed 168 people. McVeigh was executed in June 2001, and until now was the only person convicted of murder in the bombing.

"These two were partners, and their business was terrorism," prosecutor Lou Keel said during opening statements.

Prosecutors brought a mountain of circumstantial evidence during a two-month trial that included testimony from about 250 witnesses. They said Nichols bought the explosive ammonium nitrate fertilizer used in the bombing and stole detonation cord, blasting caps and other explosives.

The defense contended that others helped McVeigh carry out the bombing and that Nichols was the fall guy for a wider conspiracy. Witnesses testified that they saw McVeigh with others, including a stocky, dark-haired man depicted in an FBI sketch and known only as John Doe No. 2, in the weeks before the bombing. Authorities later concluded that the mystery man was actually an Army private who had nothing to do with the bombing.

"This is a case about manipulation, betrayal and overreaching," defense attorney Barbara Bergman said in closing arguments. "People who are still unknown assisted Timothy McVeigh."

Defense lawyers had planned on bringing up evidence that a shadowy group of conspirators, including members a white supremacist gang, helped McVeigh with the bombing. But Judge Steven Taylor refused to allow that evidence, saying the defense never showed that such people made any overt acts to further the bomb plot.

Prosecutors say McVeigh and Nichols began acquiring the key ingredients for the bomb seven months before the blast, then met at a park near Junction City, Kan., to pack it inside a Ryder truck on April 18, 1995. Nichols was at his home in Kansas 200 miles away when the bomb went off.

A total of 151 witnesses took the stand for the prosecution over 29 days of testimony that included several gruesome and tearful descriptions of the bombing.

The trial was moved 130 miles from Oklahoma City to McAlester because of the difficulty in finding an impartial jury in the city where passions still run high over the bombing.

The state's star witness was Michael Fortier, who is serving a 12-year sentence for knowing about the plot and not telling authorities.

Fortier, a close friend of McVeigh's, said McVeigh told him Nichols was deeply involved in the bomb plot and Nichols helped gather components, including the fertilizer that was mixed with high-octane fuel in the homemade bomb.

A receipt for the purchase of 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer was discovered in Nichols' home by FBI agents three days after the bombing.

Fortier said McVeigh and Nichols also burglarized a Kansas rock quarry near Nichols' home in Herington, Kan., and stole the detonation cord and blasting caps. In addition, prosecutors alleged that Nichols robbed a gun collector to finance the bomb plot.

But there were no witnesses who identified Nichols as the man who bought fertilizer, stole the explosives or committed the robbery. Prosecutors linked Nichols to the explosives theft through forensic evidence from a broken padlock and said gold coins and weapons from the gun collector were found at his home.

Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in 1998 on federal involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy convictions for the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officials. Oklahoma prosecutors charged Nichols with the deaths of the 160 other victims and one victim's fetus.

Dozens of victims' family members and survivors of the bombing are expected to testify in the penalty phase, which is expected to last four to six weeks.

In some of the recent revelations:

Senior FBI agents unsuccessfully sought permission in 2001 to interview McVeigh to resolve lingering questions about the case before the convicted Oklahoma City bomber was put to death. The plan was scrapped when the government couldn't resolve who would attend the interview or how it would be conducted.

FBI agents in another case developed evidence suggesting a gang of white supremacist bank robbers might have become involved in McVeigh's conspiracy, but the agents failed to forward some of the information to their colleagues in the Oklahoma case. That prompted the FBI in March to reopen portions of the case to determine whether other conspirators were involved.

An Oklahoma newspaper, the Idabel McCurtain Daily Gazette, and a college criminology professor, Mark Hamm, have studied McVeigh's movements extensively and developed timelines showing a white supremacist bank robbery gang was in the same vicinity as McVeigh several times during gaps in the government's official version of events.

Other documents indicate the FBI and prosecutors ordered the destruction in 1999 of evidence from a bank robbery they once suspected linked McVeigh to the white supremacists.

Less than two weeks before McVeigh was executed, the Justice Department received a letter suggesting a key prosecution witness had given false testimony. Prosecutors didn't disclose the allegations to McVeigh's lawyers and later sought to recover all copies of the letter in exchange for a lawsuit settlement.

Last summer, the FBI internal affairs office investigated their crime lab's chief of scientific analysis about his conduct in the bombing case, according to people familiar with the investigation.