The New York Times

Friday, December 29, 2000

Judge Grants McVeigh's Request to Stop Appeals; Execution Date Can Be Set

By JO THOMAS

DENVER, Dec. 28 - The federal judge who sentenced Timothy J. McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, to death agreed today to Mr. McVeigh's request to halt all further appeals of his conviction and allow a date to be set for his execution.

Mr. McVeigh discussed his request with the judge, Richard P. Matsch of Federal District Court here, over a closed-circuit television broadcast from the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., where he is being held.

"To put it plainly," Judge Matsch responded after a 30-minute hearing this afternoon, "you're making a decision here which may be the final decision with regard to your future."

When Mr. McVeigh replied, "I understand," Judge Matsch granted his request, giving him until Jan. 11 to change his mind. In making his request, Mr. McVeigh said he might ask the president for clemency.

After Jan. 11, the judge said, the director of the federal Bureau of Prisons would set a date for Mr. McVeigh's execution by lethal injection. Once the execution date is set - by law, within 120 days - Mr. McVeigh would then have 30 days to ask the president for clemency to set aside his death penalty. That procedure would also allow both the prosecutors and the victims' families a chance to comment.

Mr. McVeigh, looking composed in his khaki prison uniform but slightly thinner than at his sentencing in 1997, was accompanied today by one of his lawyers, Nathan Chambers. His other lawyer, Dennis W. Hartley, watched with the judge and the prosecutor in the courtroom.

It was the most that Mr. McVeigh, who appeared on a 50-inch color television screen, has said in court since the day his image, silent, stone-faced and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, first flashed across the nation as news of his arrest became known.

But those who came to the courtroom today in hopes of hearing Mr. McVeigh's story of the bombing on April 19, 1995 - which destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people - or learning something about his state of mind, now or then, were disappointed once again.

"He won't tell us nothing - never will," said Ralph Duke, whose 43- year-old daughter, Claudette Meek, was among those who died.

Mr. Duke said he did not see much point in executing Mr. McVeigh. "It's just another wasted life," he said.

Paul A. Heath, a survivor of the bombing, had written to ask the judge not to grant what he called Mr. McVeigh's "death wish."

"This requested action is aimed at having our government take this prisoner's life before he or one of the other prisoners reveals more of the details of this act of terror," Mr. Heath wrote. "It is being requested as an effort to promote martyrization."

Mr. Heath had hoped to read the letter in court, but Judge Matsch called on no one except Mr. McVeigh and lawyers from both sides. Previously, some other victims and their families had said they opposed an execution because they wanted to force Mr. McVeigh to spend a lifetime thinking about his crime.

Mr. McVeigh was convicted in 1997 of the bombing, the worst terrorist act on American soil, and was facing a second round of appeals. His first appeal, to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in which his lawyers contended he had been denied a fair trial, was rejected.

On March 8, 1999, the United States Supreme Court refused to review the case. A year later, new lawyers filed motions to vacate Mr. McVeigh's conviction and hold a new trial, accusing the lawyer who represented him at trial, Stephen Jones, of violating ethical standards by talking with the press and arguing that evidence had been suppressed in the first trial. Judge Matsch dismissed these motions on Oct. 12.

On Dec. 11, the day before the deadline for filing an appeal of the ruling, Mr. McVeigh sent the judge a notice that he did not want to pursue further appeals. In his request, he said that "I will not justify or explain my decision." At the same time, his lawyers told the court they believed an appeal would have merit.

Today's hearing was to determine whether Mr. McVeigh still wanted to drop his appeals and was doing so knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently. The judge asked him about living conditions and pressures in prison. Mr. McVeigh said he was in solitary confinement in an 8-by-10- foot cell, with television, access to the library, and recreation and a shower three days a week. His only medication, he said, was for heartburn.

"I am under no duress from my conditions of confinement," he said. "Nor am I under any coercion or duress from the officers."

Sean Connelly, one of the prosecutors in the Oklahoma City case, said after today's hearing that Mr. McVeigh's case had already been thoroughly reviewed.

"I don't want to try to read his mind," Mr. Connelly said. "The judge, appropriately, did not explore his motivation, and I don't want to get into psychoanalysis."

Reached at his office in Enid, Okla., Mr. Jones said he was not surprised by Mr. McVeigh's decision. "I think Mr. McVeigh will die as a soldier," he said.

The decision to drop the appeal, Mr. Jones said, "probably represents, in his own thinking, an honest evaluation or what his chances were on a second appeal."

He added, "I do not think of him as a martyr."

If granted by the president, clemency for a federal crime can involve a wide range of options, including freedom, though in a murder case it would probably involve commuting the sentence to life imprisonment. Under the timetable set by the judge, any clemency request by Mr. McVeigh would most likely be handled by George W. Bush, who as governor of Texas presided over more executions than any other governor.

After today's hearing, Mr. Heath said he did not believe Mr. McVeigh expected to be executed. "He is rubbing the federal government's nose in the fact that they haven't put anybody to death since 1963," he said. "He's mocking all of us."