On April 19, 1995 an attack in Oklahoma City killed 168 people. Terry Nichols, a man from Michigan then living in Kansas, was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy behind it, and he stood trial twice: once in a federal court in Denver, once in an Oklahoma state court in McAlester. The two juries returned different verdicts. In December 1997 the federal jury found him guilty of conspiracy and of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of eight federal law enforcement officers who died, and acquitted him of first-degree murder. In May 2004 the state jury found him guilty of 161 counts of first-degree murder. Neither jury could agree that he should be put to death. The federal court sentenced him to life imprisonment in June 1998, and the state court sentenced him in August 2004 to life without parole on each of the 161 counts.
The man tried with him, Timothy McVeigh, was tried separately in federal court and was executed in 2001. Nichols's own case ran on long after that: a surrender, a federal prosecution, a state prosecution seven years later, and years of appeals.
Terry Lynn Nichols was born on April 1, 1955 in Lapeer County, Michigan. By the spring of 1995 he was living in Herington, Kansas.
Two days after the attack, on April 21, 1995, Nichols presented himself at the police station in Herington. He was first held as a material witness. He was then charged as a co-conspirator on May 10, 1995, and on August 10, 1995 an indictment was returned against him and his co-defendant. The prosecution was brought in federal court. The charges were limited to the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers, and to the conspiracy.
Before trial Nichols went to court on one procedural question in a civil action. He challenged the government's notice that it intended to seek the death penalty in his federal case, arguing that the notice was void under the Justice Department's own manual and the federal death penalty statute. The district court ruled against him, and in 1997 the Tenth Circuit affirmed that ruling.
The case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The defense case closed on December 11, 1997, when the trial had been under way for about three months. The jury, seven women and five men, deliberated for 41 hours over six days.
On December 23, 1997 the verdicts were read. The jury found Nichols guilty of conspiracy and of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the eight federal law enforcement officers named in the murder counts. It stopped short of convicting him of first-degree murder, and it also acquitted him of second-degree murder and of the remaining counts that charged the substantive offenses. The verdict came thirty-two months after the attack.
The same jury then turned to the penalty. The prosecution had sought a sentence of death, and Nichols's lawyers planned to challenge whether it could still apply. On January 7, 1998, after two days, the jury announced that it was deadlocked and the judge dismissed it. Under federal law a death sentence can be imposed only by a jury, so the penalty passed to the judge, and death was no longer possible.
The sentencing took place on Thursday, June 4, 1998. The judge, who had heard from victims and relatives, imposed life imprisonment. He had said he would consider a lesser sentence if Nichols answered the questions that remained about the attack, but Nichols declined to speak. The judge said that Nichols and his co-defendant had set out to disrupt and intimidate the United States government. The sentence was life imprisonment on the conspiracy count and six years on each of the eight manslaughter counts, all to run concurrently, and restitution of $14.5 million.
On the same day the court proceeded with sentencing while giving prosecutors a week to answer Nichols's request for a new trial, a request based on claims about the jurors' deliberations.
Nichols's first appeal was on a procedural point. On June 24, 1998 the district court lifted the restrictions that had barred the government from cooperating fully with Oklahoma authorities who were investigating the same events. Nichols appealed, raising the same issue as his co-defendant. On November 18, 1998 the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court, relying on its published ruling in the co-defendant's case, which had found no abuse of discretion in lifting the restriction.
The appeal from the conviction itself was decided in early 1999 by a panel of three circuit judges. It raised eleven points. Nichols argued that intent to kill is an element of the offense, and that the jury should have been given instructions on lesser included offenses; the court rejected both, following the ruling in the co-defendant's case. He challenged the admissibility of expert testimony, and the court found that no evidentiary hearing was required and no reversible error. He challenged the exclusion of one defense expert as a discovery sanction, and the court held that it was within the trial court's discretion. His argument about the testimony of a cooperating co-conspirator was resolved against him by an en banc ruling of the same court in another case. The court rejected a claim of cumulative error because it found no errors. At sentencing it found no fault in the choice of the sentencing guidelines, or in the district court's decision not to explain why it declined a downward departure, or in the district court's consideration of his personal characteristics. It affirmed the restitution order on alternative grounds, finding the district court's ex post facto reasoning erroneous but the amount sound. It noted a clerical omission in the judgment, which did not record the murder acquittals, and called it to the district court's attention for correction. The judgment was affirmed on every issue.
He later filed a motion to vacate his conviction and sentence. The district court denied it, and the Tenth Circuit granted certificates of appealability on two questions: a challenge based on the Supreme Court's decision in Apprendi to the statute under which he was convicted of conspiracy, and whether he was entitled to a hearing on a claim concerning roughly 40,000 FBI lead sheets. The court affirmed the denial. The order recites that he had been convicted of the conspiracy and of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced to life imprisonment on the conspiracy count and six years on each manslaughter count.
The federal verdict covered only eight of the 168 deaths. In 1999 the Oklahoma County District Attorney decided to bring a case in the state's own courts. On March 29, 1999 he filed charges against Nichols that included 160 counts of first-degree murder, one for each victim who was not a federal officer, together with a count concerning an unborn child and a conspiracy count. Nichols could face the death penalty if convicted, and the prosecutor said he would pursue Nichols before any state case against his co-defendant. At the time Nichols was already serving the federal life sentence.
The state case moved slowly. The District Attorney who filed it retired, and his successor announced on September 5, 2001 that the case would go forward, after weighing dismissal against its cost and the strain on the victims' families. The preliminary hearing was postponed seven times. Nichols was bound over for trial in May 2003, and a district judge added two further first-degree murder counts that month, bringing the total to 162. In July 2003 the judge dismissed one count because prosecutors had given Nichols insufficient notice of it, which left 161. The Oklahoma Supreme Court denied a defense request for an eighth postponement of the proceedings. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, and in early 2004 Nichols offered to plead no contest if they withdrew that request. The prosecutor indicated he would not agree. More than $4 million had been spent on the defense, the prosecution and security by February 2004.
The trial judge moved the proceedings about 130 miles from Oklahoma City to the Pittsburg County courthouse in McAlester because of the difficulty of seating an impartial jury in the city. The jury of twelve heard the guilt phase and was to decide the penalty as well. The prosecution called about 151 witnesses over 29 days.
On May 26, 2004 the jury found Nichols guilty of 161 counts of first-degree murder, a verdict reached after about five hours of deliberation. He was also convicted of a conspiracy count and of a further offense. The penalty phase followed. After about nineteen and a half hours of deliberation over three days, the jury announced on June 11, 2004 that it could not reach a unanimous decision. The jurors were divided less over Nichols's part in the events than over whether he deserved mercy. Because the jury could not agree on death, the only penalty open to the court was life.
Nichols was sentenced on Monday, August 9, 2004, in McAlester. He was 49. The judge imposed life without parole on each of the 161 counts, to be served consecutively, ten years and a $5,000 fine on the conspiracy count, and thirty-five years and a $25,000 fine on the further offense. He ordered restitution of $5 million, a payment of $10,000 per count to a victims compensation fund, and legal fees.
For the first time in either proceeding Nichols spoke from the witness stand. "I am truly sorry for what occurred," he said, and he asked the victims' families for forgiveness. He offered to correspond with survivors to help their healing, credited God with guiding the trial and the jurors who had opposed a death sentence, and said his views differed from those of his co-defendant. The judge called him a "terrorist" and the "No. 1 mass murderer in all of U.S. history."
Nichols had ten days to appeal. His lawyers urged him not to, because a new trial could bring another effort to obtain a death sentence. The prosecutor expected that after the deadline Nichols would return to federal custody.
The Oklahoma proceedings existed because the federal verdict reached so few of the deaths. The federal case concerned eight federal law enforcement officers; the state charges covered the 160 other victims and one count for an unborn child. The federal jury had acquitted Nichols of first-degree murder for those eight deaths, and the state jury later convicted him of first-degree murder for the others.
The two penalty phases ended the same way. Federal law allows a death sentence only from a jury, and the federal jury deadlocked in January 1998; the state jury deadlocked in June 2004, leaving life as the only sentence the Oklahoma court could impose. The state case came seven years after the federal trial.
The federal and state juries reached different conclusions about Nichols's responsibility for deaths: the federal jury convicted him of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter and acquitted him of first-degree murder, while the state jury convicted him of 161 counts of first-degree murder. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the federal judgment on appeal. In his statement at the state sentencing Nichols said his views differed from those of his co-defendant, and the court made no finding on that remark. At the federal sentencing the judge said he would consider a lesser sentence if Nichols answered the questions that remained about the attack, and Nichols declined to speak; no answer was given in court. The federal appeals courts decided points of law and procedure and made no new findings of fact.
In April 2025 Nichols was serving a life sentence, held in federal custody in Colorado. The state sentence imposed in McAlester in 2004 was ordered after the federal life term had begun, and the state prosecutor expected him to return to federal custody once the appeal period ran out.
April 19, 1995: attack in Oklahoma City; 168 people die.
April 21, 1995: Nichols presents himself to police in Herington, Kansas; held as a material witness.
May 10, 1995: charged as a co-conspirator.
August 10, 1995: federal indictment returned against Nichols and his co-defendant.
1997: Tenth Circuit affirms the ruling against his challenge to the notice seeking the death penalty.
December 11, 1997: the defense case closes in the federal trial in Denver.
December 23, 1997: guilty of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter; acquitted of first-degree murder.
January 7, 1998: federal jury deadlocks on the penalty.
June 4, 1998: life imprisonment on the conspiracy count, six years on each manslaughter count, concurrent; restitution of $14.5 million.
November 18, 1998: Tenth Circuit affirms the order lifting the restrictions on cooperation with Oklahoma.
Early 1999: Tenth Circuit affirms the conviction and sentence.
March 29, 1999: Oklahoma County charges filed.
September 5, 2001: state prosecutor announces the case will proceed.
2002: Tenth Circuit affirms denial of the motion to vacate.
May and July 2003: bound over for trial; counts settle at 161.
May 26, 2004: McAlester jury finds him guilty of 161 counts of first-degree murder.
June 11, 2004: state jury deadlocks on the penalty.
August 9, 2004: sentenced to life without parole on each of 161 counts.
April 2025: serving a life sentence.