On the morning of April 19, 1995, 168 people were killed at a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, among them 19 children. Hundreds more were injured. Within hours Oklahoma authorities were holding a man on an unrelated state charge, and within two days federal investigators had identified him as the person they were looking for. He was Timothy McVeigh, an Army veteran. He was charged in federal court, tried in Denver, convicted on all eleven counts of the indictment on June 2, 1997, and sentenced to death. On June 11, 2001, he was executed in Indiana, the first federal prisoner put to death since 1963.
The case moved through a change of venue, the severance of two trials, a direct appeal that reached the Supreme Court, and, at the very end, a late disclosure of FBI records. Two other men were convicted separately of offenses connected to the same events.
McVeigh was born on April 23, 1968, in Pendleton, New York. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1988 and left it with an early discharge in late 1991.
The attack took place at a federal building in downtown Oklahoma City. The final toll of 168 dead includes 19 children, and hundreds were injured. The FBI has described it as the largest act of domestic terrorism in the nation's history, and for six years it was the deadliest terrorist incident on American soil, until September 11, 2001.
About ninety minutes after the attack, McVeigh was arrested by an Oklahoma state trooper on an unrelated matter. He was held by Oklahoma authorities on state charges and remained in jail while federal agents began their work. On April 21, 1995, federal investigators identified him as their suspect and he was taken into federal custody. A man named Terry Nichols surrendered to authorities the same day.
The FBI later reported that its agents interviewed more than 28,000 people and followed up more than 43,000 leads over the course of the inquiry.
On August 10, 1995, a federal grand jury returned an eleven-count indictment against McVeigh and Nichols. The first count charged conspiracy; two further federal counts charged offenses arising from the attack on the building; and the remaining eight counts, numbered four through eleven, charged first-degree murder under sections 1111 and 1114 of Title 18 of the United States Code, together with section 2, which makes a person who aids or causes an offense punishable as a principal. The government filed notice that it would seek the death penalty on October 20, 1995.
The judge first assigned to the case stepped aside on December 1, 1995, when the Tenth Circuit granted a petition from Nichols to recuse him. The Chief Judge of the District of Colorado was then designated to preside. On February 19, 1996, the court moved the trial to Denver. On October 25, 1996, it severed the cases of the two men and ordered that McVeigh be tried first.
Jury selection began on March 31, 1997. A jury of twelve, with six alternates, was sworn on April 24, and evidence began the next day. Closing arguments were heard on May 29 and the jury received its instructions on May 30. After four days of deliberation, on June 2, 1997, the jury found McVeigh guilty on all eleven counts.
A second phase began on June 4 to decide the sentence. It ended with closing arguments and instructions on June 12. The jury deliberated for two more days and on June 13 returned special findings recommending a sentence of death. In later proceedings the federal court recorded that the jury had found all of the aggravating factors proven and had written in no mitigating factors of its own.
On August 14, 1997, the court denied a motion for a new trial, accepted the recommendation, and sentenced McVeigh to death on each of the eleven counts. He was ordered to pay a special assessment of $550, was committed to the custody of the Attorney General until his appeals were finished, and was told he had ten days to file a notice of appeal. He filed it the same day.
A panel of three judges of the Tenth Circuit heard the appeal on April 28, 1998. McVeigh's lawyers raised nine areas of error: pretrial publicity, including press reports that he had confessed to his lawyers; the conduct of a juror who was said to have decided on guilt before the trial ended; the exclusion of evidence that other people had carried out the crime; the jury instructions; testimony from victims' relatives in both phases of the trial; limits on questions to prospective jurors; and the exclusion of certain mitigating evidence.
On September 8, 1998, the court unanimously affirmed the conviction and the death sentence, rejecting every claim. On publicity, it found that the jury pool had not been prejudiced, noting the change of venue and the nearly two years that had passed before trial, and that every juror who was seated said he or she could be impartial. It held that testimony from victims' relatives about the immediate and long-term effects of the crime was admissible and, in the penalty phase, that the jury had made "a reasoned, moral judgment." It upheld the exclusion of testimony linking McVeigh to others at an Oklahoma religious compound, because that testimony had no connection to him. The Supreme Court denied review without comment on March 8, 1999.
In March 2000 McVeigh filed a motion under section 2255 of Title 28, the federal statute for challenging a sentence after direct review. The district court denied it in 2000, and he chose not to appeal. On December 28, 2000, the same judge confirmed at a hearing that McVeigh understood he was giving up further appeals. Under a deadline that passed on January 11, 2001, he could have changed his mind and did not. On January 16, 2001, the government set an execution date of May 16.
On May 10, 2001, the Justice Department began handing over thousands of pages of FBI records from the investigation that should have been given to his lawyers before the 1997 trial. The next day, the Attorney General postponed the execution to June 11. McVeigh's lawyers sought a stay and an evidentiary hearing on the basis of the records, which ran to more than 4,000 pages. On June 6 the district judge refused, finding "no good cause to delay the execution of that sentence." He said the late disclosure reflected failures within the FBI, that he found no evidence of an intentional scheme to deceive the court, and that there could be "no doubt" that McVeigh had carried out the crime. The judge also noted that McVeigh had not claimed factual innocence.
On June 7, 2001, a panel of the Tenth Circuit ruled that his lawyers had "utterly failed to demonstrate substantial grounds" for stopping the execution and declined to reopen the appeal. McVeigh's lawyers said that day that he would not ask the Supreme Court for a stay or the President for clemency.
McVeigh was executed by the federal government on June 11, 2001, in Indiana. It was the first federal execution since 1963.
Nichols was tried separately, after McVeigh. On December 23, 1997, a federal jury in Denver convicted him of conspiracy and of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter. It acquitted him of first-degree murder in the same eight deaths. The jury could not agree on a sentence of death, and in June 1998 he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Oklahoma then tried him on state charges. On May 26, 2004, a jury in McAlester convicted him of 161 counts of first-degree murder. In June 2004 the jury again could not reach agreement on a death sentence, which left life imprisonment as the sentence the judge was to impose. Sentencing was set for August 9, 2004.
Michael Fortier, who knew of McVeigh's plans, reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors and testified against both McVeigh and Nichols. He was sentenced in 1998 to 12 years in prison and was released on January 26, 2006.
When the Oklahoma City case began, Congress and the President were already changing the law. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, signed on April 24, 1996, expanded federal jurisdiction over terrorist attacks, increased penalties for various terrorism offenses, and, in section 104, limited the grounds on which federal courts can grant relief after a state court has already ruled on a claim. President Clinton said he had long sought to streamline federal appeals by prisoners under sentence of death and that the work after Oklahoma City had been folded into the act.
In the 1998 appeal the Tenth Circuit held that the statute's "catch-all" mitigating factor allowed a defendant to argue that he had played a lesser role, but that McVeigh had offered no evidence of a connection to anyone else that would support the argument. McVeigh's own case then ran through the trial court, the court of appeals and the Supreme Court in turn, followed by a motion under section 2255 and, in his last month, a final round of motions in the district court and the Tenth Circuit.
The attack's victims are remembered at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, whose outdoor symbolic memorial was dedicated on April 19, 2000. It holds 168 chairs, arranged in nine rows, each with the name of a person killed, and 19 smaller chairs for the children.
Three questions were raised in the courts and answered there. The first was whether others took part in the crime. The Tenth Circuit upheld the trial court's exclusion of testimony that tied McVeigh to others at an Oklahoma religious compound, since the testimony had no link to him. The district judge, in June 2001, wrote that possible involvement by others would not change the fact that McVeigh was the instrument of the deaths. Nichols was later convicted of offenses arising from the same events, and Fortier was convicted on his own plea.
The second concerned press reports that McVeigh had confessed to his lawyers. The Tenth Circuit held that the publicity had not denied him a fair trial.
The third was the late disclosure of FBI records in 2001. The district judge found that the records had been given late and were within the scope of the discovery agreement, but that there was no evidence of an intentional scheme to deceive the court, and a federal appeals panel agreed that his lawyers had not shown grounds for a stay.
His eight first-degree murder convictions were federal counts covering eight of the deaths. Oklahoma never tried him for the others.
April 19, 1995: 168 people killed at a federal building in Oklahoma City; hundreds injured.
April 21, 1995: McVeigh identified and taken into federal custody; Terry Nichols surrenders.
August 10, 1995: federal grand jury returns eleven-count indictment against McVeigh and Nichols.
October 20, 1995: government gives notice it will seek the death penalty.
February 19, 1996: trial moved to Denver. October 25, 1996: trials severed; McVeigh to be tried first.
March 31, 1997: jury selection begins. April 24, 1997: jury sworn.
June 2, 1997: guilty on all eleven counts.
June 13, 1997: jury recommends a sentence of death.
August 14, 1997: sentenced to death on all eleven counts.
December 23, 1997: Nichols convicted of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter.
1998: Fortier sentenced to 12 years. June 1998: Nichols sentenced to life without parole.
September 8, 1998: Tenth Circuit affirms. March 8, 1999: Supreme Court denies review.
2000: section 2255 motion denied; no appeal. December 28, 2000: McVeigh confirms in court he is giving up appeals.
May 11, 2001: Attorney General postpones execution to June 11 after late FBI disclosure.
June 6 and 7, 2001: stay refused by district judge and Tenth Circuit.
June 11, 2001: McVeigh executed (federal), Indiana.
May 26, 2004: Nichols convicted in Oklahoma of 161 counts of first-degree murder.