IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                 FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
 Criminal Action No. 96-CR-68
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
     Plaintiff,
 vs.
 TIMOTHY JAMES McVEIGH,
     Defendant.
 ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
                      REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT
                 (Trial to Jury - Volume 148)
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
         Proceedings before the HONORABLE RICHARD P. MATSCH,
Judge, United States District Court for the District of
Colorado, commencing at 8:30 a.m., on the 12th day of June,
1997, in Courtroom C-204, United States Courthouse, Denver,
Colorado.







 Proceeding Recorded by Mechanical Stenography, Transcription
  Produced via Computer by Paul Zuckerman, 1929 Stout Street,
    P.O. Box 3563, Denver, Colorado, 80294, (303) 629-9285
                          APPEARANCES
         PATRICK M. RYAN, United States Attorney for the
Western District of Oklahoma, 210 West Park Avenue, Suite 400,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 73102, appearing for the plaintiff.
         JOSEPH H. HARTZLER, SEAN CONNELLY, LARRY A. MACKEY,
BETH WILKINSON, SCOTT MENDELOFF, JAMIE ORENSTEIN, AITAN
GOELMAN, and VICKI BEHENNA, Special Attorneys to the U.S.
Attorney General, 1961 Stout Street, Suite 1200, Denver,
Colorado, 80294, appearing for the plaintiff.
         STEPHEN JONES, ROBERT NIGH, JR., ROBERT WYATT, MICHAEL
ROBERTS, RICHARD BURR, RANDALL COYNE, AMBER McLAUGHLIN, STEVEN
ENGLAND, and ROBERT WARREN, Attorneys at Law, Jones, Wyatt &
Roberts, 999 18th Street, Suite 2460, Denver, Colorado, 80202;
JERALYN MERRITT, 303 East 17th Avenue, Suite 400, Denver,
Colorado, 80203; MANDY WELCH, Attorney at Law, 412 Main, Suite
1150, Houston, Texas, 77002; CHERYL A. RAMSEY, Attorney at Law,
Szlichta and Ramsey, 8 Main Place, Post Office Box 1206,
Stillwater, Oklahoma, 74076; CHRISTOPHER L. TRITICO, Attorney
at Law, Essmyer, Tritico & Clary, 4300 Scotland, Houston,
Texas, 77007, and MAURIE A. LEVIN, P.O. Box 280, Austin, Texas,
78767-0280, appearing for Defendant McVeigh.
                         *  *  *  *  *
                          PROCEEDINGS
    (In open court at 8:41 a.m.)
         THE COURT:  Be seated, please.
         Good morning.
         Are we ready for the jury?
         MR. HARTZLER:  Yes.
         MR. JONES:  Yes, your Honor.
         THE COURT:  Very well.
    (Jury in at 8:41 a.m.)
         THE COURT:  Members of the jury, good morning.
         JURORS:  Good morning.
         THE COURT:  We're now ready to submit these questions
to you.  And as I've already indicated to you when we started
this sentencing hearing, we'll proceed as we did at the trial;
and that is, you'll hear first from counsel for the Government,
then counsel for the defense, then counsel for the Government
on rebuttal, and then I will instruct you on the law.
         So we'll proceed.  Miss Wilkinson.
                       CLOSING ARGUMENT
         MS. WILKINSON:  May it please the Court, ladies and
gentlemen of the jury, it's time.  It's time for justice.  A
little over two years ago, Timothy McVeigh decided that he had
no time for justice.  He believed that it was his right to
murder innocent women, men, and children.  He believed that he
could take the law into his own hands and declare war on his
fellow Americans.  He killed without regard to race, creed,
color, or age.  He destroyed the lives of families in Oklahoma
City; also in Orlando, Florida; Fort Worth, Texas; Evergreen,
Colorado; and everywhere else in the United States.  Without
even a nod to justice, he stole the innocence of our children
who, like us, never believed that in America an American
citizen would kill his own in the name of patriotism.
         He gave his victims no warning.  He scoffed at the
concept of due process, and he mocked the lessons that he
learned as an Army soldier.  He carried out a daytime assault
to ensure maximum carnage.  By killing all of those babies,
those mothers, those fathers, those grandmothers, those
"Paw Paws," by killing and destroying so many others, Timothy
McVeigh revealed his total disregard for the rights of his
fellow citizens, including the most basic, their right to life.
         But today, despite his total disregard for life,
liberty, and justice, we give the defendant what every person
in this country deserves:  Justice.  Timothy McVeigh has been
presumed innocent.  He's had a public trial, and he has had
citizens from his community consider all of the evidence before
declaring him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to every crime
charged.  Unlike his victims, Timothy McVeigh receives justice.
         But as you know, justice is not finished.  There is
one decision that you all must make as the conscience of the
community.  Justice requires that you consider all of the
information presented about this crime and about Mr. McVeigh.
And then as Judge Matsch told you during his preliminary
remarks, you must make a moral judgment about the worth of a
specific life balanced against the societal value of a deserved
punishment.
         You may recall that during his opening statement,
Mr. Hartzler told you that the Government would present so much
evidence that your decision on guilt would be a rather easy
one.  That is not -- that is not the case at this stage.
Everyone acknowledges that the decision that you are about to
make is a difficult one.  Weighing the worth of anyone's life
is a gut-wrenching task.  But you are not alone.  The citizens
of this country, the community whose conscience you now
represent have already determined that the death penalty is
appropriate in certain cases.  Congress has passed laws, and
the death -- for the death penalty and developed rules like
those that govern the sentencing hearing that we just
experienced.
         And Judge Matsch will instruct you on the law.  He
will tell you the aggravating and mitigating circumstances that
you are to consider, and the statute will provide you a
framework for making your decision.
         And each and every one of you told us during voir dire
that you believed that the death penalty was appropriate, a
just punishment in certain circumstances.  Now it is time for
you to set aside your emotions, be them sympathy, compassion,
or fear, and make a decision about Timothy McVeigh based on the
facts.
         In his opening statement, Mr. Burr reminded you that
the sentencing decision of life or death could only be based on
the facts, and we agree.  This trial is not a place for
revenge, anger, or fear.  It is for justice; it is time for
justice, and justice demands that you deal with the facts.
         168 people, including a baby that was only four months
old and a man as old as 73, are dead.  There would not be
enough seats in this courtroom if we could bring them all back
today.  Those are the facts, and Timothy McVeigh is responsible
for those facts.  19 children under the age of five were
brutally murdered and ripped from the arms of their parents.
Those are the facts, and Timothy McVeigh is responsible for
those facts.
         Eight law enforcement agents who proudly served their
country were assassinated for doing their jobs.  Those are the
facts, and Timothy McVeigh is responsible for those facts.
         Over 500 people were injured, the walking wounded.
And those people, including little P. J. Allen, carry around
horrific injuries, scars, and painful memories that will haunt
them forever.  Timothy McVeigh did that.
         Timothy McVeigh drove a truck bomb packed with
explosives to the Alfred P. Murrah Building.  As he watched his
unexpecting victims go into the building, he detonated an
enormous bomb in the most bloody domestic terrorist act in the
history of our country.  There is no doubt that is a fact.
         Clint Seidl was afraid that the man who killed his
father -- that killed his mother, excuse me, was after him and
his father.
         Little five-year-old David Westberry wanted to die so
he could go to heaven to be with his "Paw Paw."
         And Special Agent Donald Leonard of the Secret Service
will never see his son graduate from college, nor will Agent
Leonard's son ever see the proud smile of a father when he
could have seen his son receive his college diploma.
         Those are the facts, and Timothy McVeigh is
responsible for those facts.
         It is all of these facts and many more that you must
consider when deciding whether Timothy McVeigh should live or
die.  We are asking you to do a difficult job.  We know that.
But we are asking you to do what is right and what is just.
         Take a moment before we review the evidence and the
information you received during the penalty case and look at
Timothy McVeigh.  Look into the eyes of a coward and tell him
you will have courage.  Tell him you will speak with one
unified voice as the moral conscience of the community and tell
him he is no patriot.  He is a traitor and he deserves to die.
         There are many reasons why the defendant should be
punished with the ultimate sanction that our community has
reserved for only the most heinous of crimes.  Those reasons
set out as aggravating factors may be weighed against the
mitigation that the defense has presented.  But it is only you
who can determine the weight of each factor and the value of
Timothy McVeigh's life.  But for the next several minutes, I
would like to review the information that you've received
during the penalty hearing that proves beyond any doubt that
the defendant's crimes were so despicable and the consequences
of his murders so horrific that the only just sentence is a
sentence of death.
         To assist you during your deliberations and to record
your findings, his Honor will give you this:  Special Findings
Form A; and in this form, you will see that you have to make
four decisions.  The first is to determine whether the
defendant intended his crimes.  Most of these issues you've
already dealt with during the guilt phase.
         Once you find that the defendant intended to commit
his crimes, you'll be asked to review the statutory aggravating
factors, which I will discuss with you in a minute.  If you
find that the Government has proved one of those factors, which
we submit you will have no problem doing, you can then move on
to the nonstatutory aggravating factors.  After that, you will
look at the defense's mitigation factors.  There are numerous
factors listed there.  But most importantly, after finding
whether all of those factors exist, you must weigh the
importance of each factor.
         Now, you will receive no guidance about how one factor
weighs or the import of one factor vs. another.  But I'd like
to give you just one example.  One of the mitigation factors
for Mr. McVeigh is that he had no criminal record, and of
course we don't dispute that.  But when put on the scales of
justice next to 168 dead people, that factor -- that mitigation
factor of no criminal record is a mere pebble compared to the
pounds of death and destruction that Mr. McVeigh caused.
         The first aggravating factor that you'll need to
consider is whether Mr. McVeigh engaged in substantial planning
and premeditation.  During his opening statement for this
phase, Mr. Ryan reviewed some of the evidence that you heard
during the trial, and I don't want to repeat that for you, but
I do want to remind you of one thing.  When Timothy McVeigh and
Terry Nichols obtained the bomb components and hid them in
storage sheds, they waited.  Timothy McVeigh laid in wait for
his innocent victims.  He waited months and months, while
little children -- like Elijah and Aaron Coverdale -- went to
America's Kids, the day-care center in the Murrah Building.
Perhaps there's nothing more painfully poignant than the name
of the day-care center in this case, America's Kids.  Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols waited for those children and those
government workers and for those citizens to go to Social
Security Administration before he killed them on April 19,
1995.
         And what mitigation evidence have you heard in
contrast to the Government's evidence?  The defense has
suggested that Timothy McVeigh may have plotted and planned an
act of domestic terrorism because he was angry about Waco.  He
thought the government had acted improperly, and he believed
that the government had killed innocent women and children.
But instead of doing what many patriotic Americans did --
question their government, write to their congressmen, protest
the Department of Justice -- Timothy McVeigh turned around and
killed and maimed hundreds of innocent men, women, and children
himself.
         But of course, we know that Timothy McVeigh had been
predicting an uprising by the people against the government
long before Waco happened.  He told Sergeant Rodriguez that
part of the reason he opposed gun control was because he didn't
want the government to know who had registered or who had
possessed weapons if there was an uprising.
         And where did he learn this?  Well, one place was in
The Turner Diaries, because that was a major theme of that
novel.  That was the same book that Timothy McVeigh carried
with him everywhere he went.  In fact, you heard that he even
carried it to field maneuvers way back in 1990.  So it wasn't
just Timothy McVeigh's outrage over Waco that caused him to
kill innocent victims, but a long-held belief that any form of
gun control would put citizens at risk and justify a bloody
confrontation with the government.  He believed that violence
and terrorism were legitimate tools to use against a
democratically elected government that he disagreed with.
         Even if you accept the mitigation information about
Waco and Timothy McVeigh's misperceptions about the siege, what
in the world did Tevin Garrett have to do with Waco?  He and
Blake Kennedy and many of the other babies who died in the
Murrah Building were not even born when Waco occurred.  What
type of mitigation is it to speak out against an alleged
government misconduct by murdering little babies?  What does
killing dedicated employees of the Housing and Urban
Development, the Social Security Administration, and those
folks who did not even work for the government have to do with
Waco?  How could there ever be a reason to kill men, women, and
children whose only mistake was to be in a federal building on
April 19, 1995?
         You know that Timothy McVeigh planned and waited to
execute his deadly crime on the anniversary of Waco, so there
can be no doubt that there was substantial planning and
premeditation involved in this crime, and on the other side of
the scale is the defendant's pathetic explanation of his anger
towards the government.  You should dismiss his attempts to
blame the government for his own monstrous conduct.  He and he
alone is responsible for his crimes, and no perception or
misperception about Waco, no matter how strongly felt,
mitigates the death and destruction, the injury and the
ever-lasting pain he has caused.
         Mr. Burr asked you during his opening statement to
accept Timothy McVeigh's views as some sort of separate
reality.  It was not a reality.  It was a misguided fantasy.
And if Timothy McVeigh's beliefs about Waco justify murder,
then every citizen in our community who disagrees with his
government can do the same.  Our democracy permits those who
disagree with the government to speak out.  This is the freest
country in the world.  We feel so strongly that everyone should
be able to say their piece that the right to freedom of
expression is the very first amendment in our Constitution.
But what we do not and what we must not tolerate as a free
society is someone trying to impose their political will on the
rest of the community through violence and terror.  No amount
of anger at the government can ever justify the purposeful
destruction of families, American lives, and security.
         The second factor that you will have to consider
during your deliberations is whether Timothy McVeigh killed
victims during the commission of a federal crime; that is,
transporting explosives across state lines with the intent to
cause death, injury, and destruction.  Again, there's no
question that this aggravating factor has been proved.
         Mr. Ryan read to you a few of the chilling passages
from The Turner Diaries that show in black and white the
consequences of a large truck bomb being used against a
building.  The killing and maiming of hundreds of occupants of
the targeted building, the pain and the suffering of the dead
and the survivors, the destruction of the building and the risk
to so many others in the area, all of this was known to Timothy
McVeigh long before he drove that truck from Kansas to Oklahoma
City and lit the fuse in front of the Murrah Building.
         He knew from reading The Turner Diaries what kind of
hell he was going to unleash.  One need only consider the size
of the bomb, somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 pounds of
explosives, to know that Timothy McVeigh intended to kill
people.  No one builds a bomb of that size and that force
unless they want to kill as many people as possible.
         And what does the defense put forth as mitigation?
You heard his Army colleagues tell you that he was a good
gunner; in other words, a good killer.  He could, in the words
of Sergeant Daniels, put steel on steel -- which is like fire
and hit the target, whatever he's aiming at -- he's got to be
able to hit it fast, quick, and kill.
         Well, tell that to Baylee Almon, tell that to her
mother.  Baylee had no steel protecting her in the day-care
center.
         And tell that to Diane Leonard who told you that if
her husband could have defended himself, he would have.  That
wasn't possible on April 19, 1995, because Timothy McVeigh did
not want to fight fair.  He intended to kill and injure as many
people as possible in the most cowardly way possible.  He drove
a bomb, hidden in a truck, and without warning, decimated an
entire community.
         There can be no doubt that there has been overwhelming
evidence proving that Timothy McVeigh intended to cause death,
injury, and destruction; nor can there been any question, as to
the third factor, that Timothy McVeigh wanted to kill federal
agents because they were federal agents.
         He told Michael Fortier and his sister Jennifer that
federal agents deserved to die for the fire at Waco.  But even
more obvious than that, he chose the Murrah Building, which he
knew contained offices of federal agents, agents he believed
were at the Waco siege in 1993.  He killed American law
enforcement agents for doing their jobs, upholding the law, and
protecting our society, for fighting crime, for interdicting
drugs, for seizing illegal currency, and for protecting the
presidents of the United States.
         But those eight law enforcement agents, like so many
of the other victims in the Murrah Building, were also school
teachers, fathers, grandfathers, new wives, former military
soldiers, and of course public servants.
         Kay Ice spoke to you about her brother, Paul, and she
told you what kind of public servant he was as a federal agent.
She said, First and foremost what I want you to know is what a
patriot my brother was.  He was so proud of being an American
ever since he was a little boy.  He loved this country.  He
loved being a Marine.  He loved being a government agent.
Those were the kind of public servants that Timothy McVeigh
killed.  Those eight agents died serving their country.
         It's not as if our community is not used to men and
women of our armed services or the law enforcement dying in the
line of duty.  That is sometimes the price that we grudgingly
pay for living in the greatest country in the world.  But what
we are not used to and what we can never get used to is one of
our own citizens, a fellow American, killing public servants to
serve some twisted political agenda.  For that type of conduct,
which is so detrimental to the fabric of our society and the
security that we enjoy every day, Congress has said that that
should be a specific aggravating factor justifying the death
penalty.  Here we have proven beyond any doubt, and you should
so find during your deliberations.
         The fourth factor, the fourth statutory aggravating
factor that you need to look at is whether the defendant --
excuse me, the fifth, is whether the defendant caused a grave
risk of death to others in committing his crimes.  Of course he
did.  You heard evidence of that at trial, and you heard it
during the penalty phase.  You saw that many, many people were
placed in harm's way and faced a grave risk of death on
April 19, 1995.
         Sue Mallonee from the Oklahoma State Department of
Public Health told you about the numerous people whose lives
were hanging in the balance on and after April 19, 1995.
         And you saw for yourself pictures of children like
Brandon Denny, P. J. Allen, and Nekia McCloud who all survived,
although barely, and forever scarred.  They survived the
bombing despite the grave risk that Timothy McVeigh created in
downtown Oklahoma City.
         Other adults came forward like Susan Walton and Cliff
Cagle, and they told you about their severe injuries and
life-threatening surgeries that brought them close to death's
door.
         Rescue worker Melissa Webster told you how she
literally saved Royia Sims' life by putting her in an ambulance
instead of tagging her for dead.  Thanks to Melissa's
perseverance, Royia Sims lived.
         But no story could be more telling about the grave
risk of death than Daina Bradley's leg amputation as told by
Dr. Andy Sullivan.  If not for his heroic efforts, Daina
Bradley would not have been able to walk into this courtroom
and tell you her story.  Bleeding and in shock, trapped in the
rubble, Daina Bradley was about to die.  Dr. Sullivan did what
no doctor should have to do.  He struggled with the idea that
his attempts to save her life, to save her from the grave risk
of death, could kill her and himself.  But with the miracles
that always seem to surround such horrific tragedies,
Dr. Sullivan was able to remove Daina Bradley from the rubble
and save her life.
         The fifth factor you must consider is whether the
defendant caused serious physical and emotional injuries.  You
saw witness after witness come forward and tell you about the
physical and emotional injuries that they and their loved ones
suffered.  We've already discussed some of the physical
injuries, so I want to turn to the emotional injuries that you
heard about.
         Mrs. Leonard spoke on behalf of all the victims when
she told you she had a hole in her heart like the hole that was
created in the Murrah Building.  Many others came forward and
talked about their loneliness, their sorrow and the emptiness
they have felt since April 19, 1995.
         Mrs. Sharon Medearis described the pain she
experienced when she was going to have to tell her daughter,
who had already lost her husband during the Persian Gulf War,
that the only other man in her life, her father, was also dead.
         And in a story that every mother and father can relate
to, Mrs. Jeannine Gist told you about losing her youngest
daughter, Karen -- Mrs. Gist lives with many emotional scars,
but the one that appeared to be most painful was her statement
that as a mother, she should have died first.  That is an
emotional injury that every parent fears; and because of
Timothy McVeigh, many parents have suffered that injury.
         The next factor we ask you to look at is that the
defendant killed 168 people.  This factor, this factor alone,
is enough when put on the scales of justice to sanction and
warrant a sentence of death for Timothy McVeigh.
         As the Judge will tell you, you have to decide how to
weigh each factor, and of course you have to find one of the
statutory factors first.  But I submit to you, killing 168
people is enough.  This is the crime that the death penalty was
designed for.  If not 168 people, then how many?  Would 20
children have been enough?  Would 10 law enforcement agents
have been sufficient?  Would 25 visitors to the Social Security
office have been necessary to warrant the death penalty?
         The numbers -- the number of deaths in this case is so
overwhelming that it's difficult to contemplate how the murder
of 168 individuals with families and friends, churches,
hobbies, volunteer activities, and interests would not be
enough in and of itself to warrant the death penalty for the
individual responsible no matter how good a neighbor he was, no
matter how bright a student, no matter how hard a worker, and
especially how angry he was at his government.
         In contrast to these 168 people, the defense has urged
you to consider Timothy McVeigh, and you should.  We learned
from the witnesses presented by the defense that Timothy
McVeigh was brought up in a nice home, with parents that loved
him.  Timothy McVeigh had good adult role models throughout his
youth and friends in school.  Both his parents came before you
and told you about Timothy McVeigh, but they told you about the
Timothy McVeigh they used to know.  They told you about Timothy
McVeigh as a child.  All of us can feel compassion for his
parents, but they do not know the Timothy McVeigh who murdered
innocent men, women, and children.  Timothy McVeigh is no
longer the sweet kid they want to remember.  He is an adult who
is responsible for his conduct, and he should be held
responsible for his actions.
         While Timothy McVeigh has had the benefit of his
parents asking for his life, the victims of his crimes had no
one.  There was no Richard Burr to eloquently plead to Timothy
McVeigh to save the lives of those people on April 19.  Their
mothers were not allowed to beg for their lives.  And even if
someone had pleaded for them, Timothy McVeigh would have turned
a deaf ear.  You heard that months before the crime he decided
to murder all of those people because, in his words, they were
part of an evil empire.
         You also heard during this phase of the case that
Timothy McVeigh was smart and a quick study when he put his
mind to it.  He served in the United States Army.  With his
intelligence, drive, and determination, Sergeant Major Harris
told you, he could carry out any mission.  Unfortunately after
he got out of the military in 1991, the mission he chose was to
try to destroy his own country.
         Once in the Army, you heard again and again Timothy
McVeigh was a good soldier.  But unlike Sergeant Rodriguez and
the others you heard that had left the military, who became
nurses and clerks, Timothy McVeigh became obsessed with The 
Turner Diaries, gun control, Waco, and he rejected everything
good about being a soldier, a patriot.  He violated the
cardinal rule of the military when he chose to kill innocent
men, women, and children.  Here is a man who had every chance
to succeed, every opportunity, and instead he chose to be a
mass murderer.
         Timothy McVeigh murdered more American citizens in one
day than were killed in combat in the entire Persian Gulf War.
So to call him, as Mr. Burr did in his opening, "the most
soldierly among us" is an insult to every man and woman who
served in our armed services.  Many of you have been in the
military, yourselves, or have fathers or mothers who have
served.
         You know, as Sergeant Hardesty told you, that military
service is a privilege, it's not an excuse.  Timothy McVeigh
knew that a soldier swears to uphold and defend the
Constitution.  He violated that oath on April 19, 1995, and he
lost his right to be called a good soldier.
         The final factor that you must consider when
determining whether Timothy McVeigh should live or die is the
severe impact this crime had on the victims.  This I must tell
you, ladies and gentlemen, must be the understatement of this
case.  Timothy McVeigh's crimes had a severe impact on the
victims.  In a little less than two and a half days, with
approximately 38 Government witnesses who told you about the
effects of Timothy McVeigh's murderous conduct, described for
you the pain, the suffering, and the loss, they, as I'm sure
you realize, were just a small sampling of the actual persons
affected by this crime.  We brought you just the tip of the
iceberg of the suffering and loss, but we did it not to get
your sympathy or to play to your emotions.
         The stories that you heard from the witnesses were
about individuals, but they were also a representative sample
of the pain and the loss felt by people across America.  We did
not want to bring you those facts, those painful, heart-
wrenching facts, but Timothy McVeigh caused all of that, and
you are entitled to hear those facts.  We presented fathers and
mothers, sisters and grandmothers, children and rescue workers,
who told you about the difficulties they have suffered from
losing their loved ones or from incurring physical and
emotional injuries, themselves.
         But really, it was the defendant, Timothy McVeigh, who
brought you those witnesses.  He caused Michael Lenz to lose
his wife and his unborn son on April 19.
         Timothy McVeigh brought emptiness and loss to
Evergreen, Colorado, when he killed David Klaus's daughter,
forcing Mr. Klaus and his wife to change their wedding
anniversary because April 19 is now too filled with sorrow to
even contemplate celebration.
         Officer Don Browning must live with the haunting
memory of the little girl who approached his dog, Gunner, and
said, "Please, Mr. Police Dog -- please find my friends."  This
is a nightmare that Officer Browning will live with for the
rest of his life, because he didn't find any of the little
girl's friends alive.
         Kathleen Treanor talked to you about the horror and
the loss of not just losing her youngest daughter but also her
in-laws, who just happened to be in the Social Security office
in April of 1995.
         Todd McCarthy brought home the reality of trying to
raise a son who lost his grandfather in the bombing, the
difficulty he will have explaining to his son why his
grandfather was killed on April 19.
         And Sergeant Greg Sohn has dealt with a similar
problem, explaining to his blended family of five why their
mother will never be at another birthday party.
         Cindy Ashwood told you that to this day, she still
turns around in her chair in her office to try and call her
sister, Susan Ferrell, even though she knows she died on
April 19.
         The enormity of the impact of this crime cannot be
overstated.  It can barely be comprehended.  It is not just the
immediate families that have suffered loss; but communities,
churches, employers, schools across this country have endured
the repercussions of Timothy McVeigh's crimes.
         You heard Pam Whicher when she told the story of her
daughter.  Mrs. Whicher, a widow of a Secret Service agent,
Alan Whicher, told you about the paper her daughter wrote about
the day that changed her life.  In that paper, her daughter
told of a struggle to deal with her father's murder.  She said,
"I never knew such a dark, horrible place existed until I had
to claw my way out of there."  She could have just as well been
speaking for the entire nation, which had never before had to
endure such monstrous crimes as Timothy McVeigh's.  We never
knew that such a dark and horrible place could exist in America
until Timothy McVeigh sent us there.
         In his opening statement to you, Mr. Jones recognized
that the bombing at Oklahoma City was seared into the memory of
our generation like the attack on Pearl Harbor was to the
generation before us.  Mr. Jones was right.  Like the attack on
Pearl Harbor, the bombing in Oklahoma City threatened our sense
of security within our own borders; and this threat to our
insecurity (sic) came from and was caused by Timothy McVeigh.
He betrayed every American.  He betrayed his fellow soldiers
from the Persian Gulf.  He betrayed his family, and he betrayed
you.  He is a traitor who chose of his own volition to betray
his country by murdering as many United States citizens as he
could.  No person, no government action, no second or third
reality that Mr. Burr mentioned, made Timothy McVeigh murder
168 of his own people.
         As the moral conscience of the community, you must
speak on behalf of all Americans who rightly refuse to accept
any justification for this horrible crime.  It is time for
justice.  It is time to impose the ultimate sanction on the man
responsible for this terror.  Serve justice, speak as the moral
conscience of the community, and sentence Timothy McVeigh to
death.
         MR. JONES:  If your Honor please, Mr. Burr will open
for the defense; and I will conclude.
         THE COURT:  Very well.
         Mr. Burr.
                       CLOSING ARGUMENT
         MR. BURR:  Your Honor, Ms. Wilkinson, Mr. Hartzler,
Mr. McVeigh, and colleagues in the defense of Mr. McVeigh,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we do not dispute one of the
things that Ms. Wilkinson said; indeed, we do not dispute many
of the things that she said.  We certainly do not dispute that
the enormity of this crime cannot be understated.  It can be
barely understood.
         The immensity of the loss and suffering is so big and
so staggering that most of us can only think about small parts
of it at a time.  Yes, all the victims were innocent.  The
babies, the grandparents, the parents, the children, the
brothers, the sisters targeted solely because of the misfortune
of where they were or who they worked for.  Yes, the attack was
planned on our government; that is, for better or worse, the
entity that is our collective manifestation, the material
impression of all of us as a body politic:  Us, all of us at
its core.
         Those facts are not disputable.  Neither I nor
Mr. Jones will stand here to try to justify or excuse what has
happened.  But that is not the mission that faces you in this
part of the case.  That is not the mission.
         The mission is different.  You will hear it stated
from Judge Matsch, but it's terribly important that you
understand it; and I will talk about it a bit before I talk
about the facts any more.
         You have already heard several times from Judge Matsch
that in deciding the appropriate sentence for Mr. McVeigh, you
must serve as the conscience of the community.  Much has been
said about this.  I will say more.  And Judge Matsch will say
more.
         It is terribly important that you listen to what is
said about this role and come to understand it in your own
terms, because it is at the heart of what you're called upon to
do.  Serving as the conscience of the community requires first
that you be willing to follow the law.  Judge Matsch will
instruct you on the law.  What he will tell you is so important
that I'd like to take just a few moments to talk about it as
well.
         The most important requirement of the law, again which
you have heard already from Judge Matsch and you will hear
again, is that you be willing to consider both aggravating and
mitigating circumstances before you decide what the appropriate
sentence is.  These concepts are new to most of us, so I want
to address them briefly.
         The fact that we have the death penalty as a possible
punishment for certain kinds of crimes does not mean that it
must be imposed for any particular crime.  There was a time in
our country that the death penalty was mandatory for certain
kinds of crimes.  Upon conviction of one of those crimes, the
sentence was death, automatically.  Nothing was taken into
account except that the person was guilty of that particular
kind of crime.
         This is no longer the law.  You know that from all the
instructions Judge Matsch has given you so far, from jury
selection to the present.  There are some who say -- and some
of the things that Ms. Wilkinson said reiterate this -- that
this case is one in which the only conceivably appropriate
sentence is death.  The sentiment is expressed in various ways.
You've heard them.  Indeed, many of us may have had these
thoughts cross our mind at some point in thinking about this
case.  Some say if we're going to have the death penalty, this
is the kind of case in which it has to be imposed.  Others
express it as Ms. Wilkinson did:  How many must be killed; how
many bodies must there be?
         And perhaps the most direct way of expressing this is
I don't care who Tim McVeigh is or why this happened; the fact
that he killed 168 people is all that I need to know.
         These sentiments are all understandable, totally
understandable in the context of this case.  However, the law
of our land, the law that has grown directly out of our Bill of
Rights, calls us to higher ground, calls us to struggle to get
to higher ground in a case like this.
         The Eighth Amendment in our first ten Bill of Rights
protects against cruel and unusual punishment, and it teaches
that it is cruel to decide a sentence solely on the basis of
the kind of crime that has been committed.  Who the offender is
and why the crime has been committed may provide reasons to
impose life instead of death.
         The Supreme Court has explained that a capital
sentencing procedure that ignores these factors is cruel for
the very reason that -- and I quote:  "It excludes from
consideration in fixing the ultimate punishment of death the
possibility of the compassionate or mitigating factors stemming
from the diverse frailties of humankind."
         To be able to consider both aggravating and mitigating
circumstances, you have to understand what mitigating
circumstances are.  Let me address that briefly.
         Judge Matsch explained in his instructions at the
beginning of the penalty phase that mitigation circumstance --
circumstances are those factors which weigh in favor of a life
sentence.  They are those aspects of the background, character,
and life of Mr. McVeigh and of the circumstances surrounding
this offense that might cause you to question whether to impose
a death sentence.  They are the things that tug at you, they
give you pause; that cause you to think in your quiet moments
that perhaps life is the appropriate sentence.
         Mitigating circumstances are not matters which excuse
the crimes for which Mr. McVeigh has been convicted, nor do
they lessen in any way the responsibility he bears for whatever
he did.  Either sentence, death or life without the possibility
of release, is very severe.  Choosing life over death does not
mean that you in any sense excuse these crimes.  It means only
that you have found some reason to exercise a small measure of
compassion.  It is crucial that you appreciate this
distinction.
         There is one other terribly important difference in
your consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
You will hear from Judge Matsch that to find an aggravating
circumstance, you must all 12 agree beyond a reasonable doubt
that an aggravating circumstance exists.  That is not the case
with a mitigating circumstance.  Each of you finds mitigating
circumstances, yourself.  There need be no agreement.  It is
your own individual decision as to whether mitigating
circumstances exist; and if so, which ones, and if so, how much
weight they have.
         The final requirement of the law is that you engage in
a process of weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
Some of the things that Ms. Wilkinson says suggested to you
that common notions of weighing are the appropriate ones to use
here.  We submit that that's not right.  Judge Matsch will
instruct you.  He will instruct that the weighing process is
not a mechanical process, a counting and comparing in a
quantitative way the number of aggravating and mitigating
circumstances.  Nor even is it a weighing process in the sense
of a scale.  The weighing process is qualitative, not
quantitative.  It requires that you consider aggravating and
mitigating circumstances in light of each other and follow the
dictates of your conscience as to what sentence should be
imposed.  Because your conscience is your guidepost Judge
Matsch will instruct that you are never, never required to
impose a death sentence.
         Bringing your conscience to bear on the aggravating
and mitigating circumstances calls for you to draw upon the
deepest resources within you -- excuse me.  You must draw upon
your own sense of what is right and, because you're also
serving as the conscience of the community and the nation in
this case, what you think is right from the perspective of the
nation.
         I'd now like to turn to the facts that have to be
weighed.  You know that the person that you found responsible
for these crimes is quite human by now, just like you and many
of the people you know and love.  You know that Tim is not an
evil man, not a man who was somehow defective in the way he
thought or felt or dwelt among us in his lifetime, but instead
a man who embodies much of the best that we call "human" and a
young man who loved this country and proudly put his life on
the line for all of us when we asked him to.
         He has not changed; the evidence has shown no change.
You'll remember Sheila Nicholas at the end of our testimony
yesterday, the end of '94, early '95, the same Tim McVeigh that
she described was the Tim McVeigh that people described
throughout his lifetime.  The Government is wrong to suggest to
you that you can easily dismiss the humanity of Mr. McVeigh by
saying that somehow he lost it along the way.  It's not that
simple.
         The testimony of those who know Tim is still fresh
with you, so I won't go over it in much detail; but I do want
to recall with you briefly some of the qualities that define
this man, Tim McVeigh.  So many people from such different
walks of life saw so many of the same qualities in Tim that you
know these qualities are real and enduring.  Who is he?  He is
an intelligent young man who is a positive thinker.  As Debbie
Carballo said about him from her perspective in high school, he
felt he could do with hard work what he needed to do and be
successful.
         He is a hard worker, who eagerly takes on the hardest
tasks, as Howard Thompson, one of the his military buddies,
said, and one of his first roommates in the military said,
Whenever you have something to do, he would always go ahead and
face it and do it.  Time and again in the Army and elsewhere,
Tim faced challenges, rose to the occasion, and kept on.
         Tim's dependable.  Throughout his life, people have
found what Debbie Carballo again expressed:  We knew that if we
needed something, we could ask Tim.
         Tim's honest.  No one found him otherwise.  In a
variety of situations, from turning in money from armored cars
that he could have kept without anyone noticing, to speaking
the truth to Howard Thompson, Ted Thorne, and others, Tim was
straight with people.
         Tim's helpful, compassionate, a good friend.  Debbie
Carballo remembers Tim as a person who was friends with
everybody, who never got stuck in cliques that most high school
kids were stuck in.  Many others experienced the generosity of
that spirit, from strangers along the highway, to the
McDermotts' children; to his cousin, Linda Daigler; to fellow
soldiers who needed consoling, patient teaching, good advice,
or someone who help them when they were drunk; to Sheila
Nicholas, who needed a caring confidant at a critical crossroad
in her life.
         Vicki Hodge told you Tim has always been someone who
he always looked out for the underdog.  He took care of people
who needed help.
         And as Howard Thompson testified, if you're looking
for a relationship where you have honesty, understanding, and
someone that would be there for you at all times, he would be
that kind of person.
         Tim's funny, cheerful, happy.  Mr. Drzyzga spoke for
many others when he said that Tim was always cheerful, always
looking for a laugh.
         Because of these and other virtues, nearly everyone
who knew Tim, who testified over the last few days, expressed
their disbelief that Tim could have done what you have found
that he did in Oklahoma City.
         There are more qualities in Tim that can help us
understand a bit more, however.  Tim's longstanding and deep
interest in guns can help us understand a bit more.  Tim's
interest in guns began early and gradually became an expression
of his deepest feelings.  Toward the end of his time in the
Army, you will remember, he carried a gun with him most of the
time; and he had guns placed about the house that he and Royal
Witcher shared.  This was a practice that continued.  When
Royal Witcher and others asked him why he felt he needed to
have guns accessible, he said, "You never know."
         The sense of foreboding, of impending danger found its
expression as well in Tim's abiding interest in survivalism.
Being prepared for disaster, preparing for a time of
persecution, being vigilant were qualities that made Tim more
sensitive than most of us to threats to well-being.  Tim was
sensitive to fear.
         Tim was also deeply devoted to the ideals upon which
this country was founded.  He believed deeply in individual
liberty and freedom.  He believed deeply in the inalienable
right to bear arms, to defend against governmental tyranny.  He
believed in the kind of rugged individualism that we used to be
proud of.
         And Tim, as we've noted, was willing to lay down his
life for his country, though he did not have to, in the Gulf
War.
         We also know that this good young man, deeply devoted
to his country, came to believe -- and Mr. Jones will argue
this in more detail -- that the federal government was the
enemy of the people of this country.  The belief did not come
overnight.  It grew over time.  It grew from a sense of fear, a
sensitivity to impending persecution, a sensitivity to
governmental intrusion in the lives of ordinary citizens.
         That fear began to grow as Timothy McVeigh began to be
exposed to incidents that happened in the world.  There is no
doubt that an incident happened at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.  There is
no doubt that a federal marshal, a child, and a mother were
killed there.  Tim McVeigh believed that federal agents
murdered the child and the mother.
         There is no doubt that a short six months later, ATF
agents, nearly a hundred of them, surrounded a church and
resident -- residence called "Mt. Carmel" in Waco, Texas --
near Waco, Texas.  There is no doubt that on that day, February
the 28th, five Branch Davidians were killed and four ATF agents
were killed.  And there is no doubt that 51 days later, 74 more
Branch Davidians died in a terrible fire that consumed that
church and that residence.
         Tim McVeigh believed that the government was
responsible for the deaths of those people.  All of them.  You
have seen what he learned from.  You can evaluate his beliefs.
You can give weight, however you see fit, to his beliefs.
         But understand that these beliefs did not arise out of
thin air.  They were not misguided fantasies, as Ms. Wilkinson
said they were.  They were grounded in an indisputable reality.
An interpretation of that reality followed; and you have heard
the interpretation, you have seen the sources from which it
came.  You can decide what weight to give that; but you cannot
dismiss it as nonexistent, as the delusions of a madman.
They're not.
         These are the realities that you must bring into the
weighing process in considering the enormity of this crime.
How do they relate to one another?  The aggravating
circumstances that Ms. Wilkinson went over with you are what
they are.  They are not diminished, nor is their gravity
lessened by the mitigating circumstances.  We do not contend
that they are.  There is no excuse, there is no justification.
There is enormity and immensity so much that we cannot even
wrap our minds around it.  That is a clear reality.
         The two areas of mitigation do not excuse and do not
diminish or call for anything less than a severe, severe
punishment, nothing less than life without the possibility of
release.  A death sentence of sorts, but a death sentence that
implicates something about your conscience.
         When Michael Fortier said from the witness stand, Tim
McVeigh is a good man except for this, I'm sure most of you
cringed.  I did.  We cringed because, of course, the "except
for this" is virtually everything; but it is not totally
everything.  There is still a good man, and there is still a
good man who, from no ill motive, perhaps from a misperception,
perhaps not, came to have certain impassioned and passionate
beliefs about his government, about a government that he
believed was acting like England in the 18th century, whose
mission was -- had turned upon its own people.
         The part of Tim McVeigh that Michael Fortier talked
about is existent; and it is that part which you must allow to
settle into your conscience, not ignore it, and give it
whatever weight and whatever credit you will.
         Now, there is no answer that's satisfactory to why a
young man like Tim McVeigh, who lived the life that he lived,
could have borne whatever responsibility for this crime that
you have found.  There is no satisfactory answer.  There are
some -- there is some insight; there is some insight based on
who he is.  Indeed, the impassioned person who believed in
defending the underdog, the impassioned person who believed
that governmental tyranny had been resisted begins to give some
insight.  It does not excuse, it does not justify, it does not
diminish the horror of what happened.  But it does raise a
small, still voice about death or life.
         Before concluding, I'd like to say one word about
being a victim in this case.  You did not hear from the witness
stand any person who was a victim of this case call upon you as
to sentence.  You did not hear it.  That's an important lesson.
Victims are honored and supported by having been here, by
having been allowed to tell the story even in small ways of
what happened to them or to their loved ones.  There is not a
necessary connection between the punishment of Tim McVeigh and
the futures of people who were victimized and still living.
         That was made clearest and elegantly, I think, by the
testimony of Susan Urbach that I'd like to remind you of when
she talked about the scar on her face.  You'll remember she
said:  Any scar tells a story, and the story it tells is -- it
tells a story of a wounding and a healing that goes along with
that wounding.  And the more deeply you're wounded, the more
healing that must come your way.  You must experience for that
wound to close up and for you to get your scar.  I mean, you
don't get your scar unless you've been wounded and you have
been healed, and I've got my scar, and I'm proud of it.
         The wisdom of Ms. Urbach is that healing from the
wounds in this case has to come from within, from within each
person victimized, terribly wounded.  Some may never heal.
Many told you there is a hole in their heart that will always
be there.  But whatever healing may happen, it will come from
within.  It will not be hastened or indeed aided by the
decision you make about sentence.  That is another separate
reality.
         In closing, I would like to start with the question
that Todd McCarthy raised for each of us when he talked about
how he would teach his child.  He said:  I fear the job that I
have, I fear my son coming home from elementary school or
junior high school and opening up his history book and asking
me, Why, why did my grandfather die?  He went to work to help
people get housing who couldn't otherwise afford it or obtain
it, and for that he -- his life was taken from him.  I am now
charged with teaching my son love and compassion when all he
sees is hate.  And that's a job I don't think anybody would
want to have.
         How do we teach love and compassion when what we are
confronted with is hate?  What is the response to hate that is
guided by love and compassion?  When hate leads to killing, do
we abandon our commitment to love and compassion by killing the
killer?  Under our law, we do not so long as we have made a
genuine and systematic effort to examine not only the harm
caused by hate but also the life of the person who caused the
harm and the reasons for the hate that led to the killing.
         If in that process we decide that there is nothing in
the life of the killer or in the reasons for the killing that

touches our conscience and that we can rest easy with our
conscience, if we put the killer to death, we have acted with
love and compassion under the law, even though we ourselves
have taken a life.
         Here that process of examining facts and searching our
conscience should lead us to imprison Tim McVeigh for the rest
of his life rather than put him to death.  Tim McVeigh's crime
was not the product of evil motive.  Deluded though you may
think it was, his motive was based on qualities that in other
contexts we applaud:  Resistance to tyranny, sacrificing life
in an attempt to accomplish a greater good, laying one's own
life on the line to resist the encroachment of the nation's
enemy.  But even more important than that, aren't we all in
some way implicated in his crime?
         Mr. McVeigh's beliefs about Waco and Ruby Ridge and
the threat presented by militarization of federal law
enforcement did not arise in a vacuum, did not arise out of
thin air.  They are not the delusional fantasies of a madman.
Somehow, somewhere, in the midst of Mr. McVeigh's misplaced,
mistakenly acted upon, horrifyingly out-of-proportion beliefs,
there is a reason for all of us to have concern.  That we have
not expressed that concern before this tragedy means that we
all bear some responsibility for Oklahoma City.  We should not
feel a clear conscience if we kill Timothy McVeigh, and that is
why we ask that you sentence him to life in prison without the
possibility of release.
         Thank you.
         THE COURT:  Mr. Jones.
                       CLOSING ARGUMENT
         MR. JONES:  May it please the Court.
         THE COURT:  Mr. Jones.
         MR. JONES:  Mr. Hartzler, Mr. Ryan, my colleagues,
Mr. McVeigh, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, last Friday
Mr. Burr stood at this same podium and asked the rhetorical
question which must have been on your minds:  How did this come
to be, how did this come to be?  And now you know.  You know
that the road to Oklahoma City ran through Waco and the small
adjacent community of Mt. Carmel.
         What occurred in Oklahoma City was an attack upon the
constitutional system of the United States of America, and it
was necessary in order for justice and indeed the Constitution
to be restored to people who wondered whether it could survive
amidst such carnage that the system be seen to work, all the
more so because recent other dramatic trials had drawn into
question whether in fact our courts had simply become a
three-ring circus.
         When this case is over with and you return to your
normal lives and you catch up with everything that you have
missed, you will know and come to understand, if you do not
already, that the work of this court and in this trial has in
fact restored that faith.  I should like to think that we on
the defense have made some small contribution to that, but that
is for others to govern and to decide.  What I do know is that
the Court itself and you as members of the jury have
contributed to that.  You contributed to it first by
participating in the longest voir dire ever conducted in any
federal court in our history, an unprecedented, individualized
voir dire in which the lawyers, following the Court's lead,
asked you questions, almost unheard of, and certainly three
weeks, it had never happened before.
         You were called to sit in judgment upon facts that
were strongly contested; it was our duty as a part of that
system of justice under the Crimes and Offenses Act of 1790,
the thirteenth piece of legislation signed into law by
President George Washington, that Mr. McVeigh have counsel, and
everything that could be reasonably accomplished on his behalf,
supported by the Court, was done.  And it was my duty then to
raise every objection; as the Court told you, to question all
of the evidence that I could; to present alternative
explanations and theories, and to raise a reasonable doubt.  I
told you we would present no false defense then, and we will
present no false mitigation now.
         That was our duty.  Our oath of office required it.
Your oath of office, of course, required that you sit carefully
and attentively, as you did, and that is what earned the
respect, that and the time that you took to deliberate, to
weigh the evidence carefully.  And perhaps when you first went
in the room, all 12 of you were of one mind; and then, led by
your foreman and others, you decided to review the evidence to
be certain, to be sure, because we all recognized that this was
a very important matter that you were called upon to judge.
         And so Mr. Burr has told you of the mitigating factors
that we believe important for you to consider as they relate to
Mr. McVeigh, the person.  Conscious as I am of my
responsibility to Mr. McVeigh as his lawyer, I do not believe
that anything that I am about to say to you, which is drawn
from the evidence and from our common experience as mature men
and women in America, is contrary to that duty or
responsibility.  Indeed, I believe it complements it, though it
is most assuredly of a different nature.
         Ms. Wilkinson told you, and I don't dispute it, that
Mr. McVeigh killed more people in Oklahoma City than all of the
American dead in the Persian Gulf War.  I am not here to
dispute your verdict.  When you returned your verdict, Judge
Matsch told you that we accept your verdict, and I am not here
to challenge it, to impeach it, or to question it.  What I am
about to say to you, on the contrary, accepts your verdict and
all that it implies.
         We have a situation here where if you were to think
about it and follow through what Miss Wilkinson said -- you
remember John Graham, the Denver citizen who in 1955 killed 44
innocent men, women, and children on board a United airliner
that left the old Stapleton Field.  He killed them in order to
obtain $36,000 life insurance on his mother he had bought at
one of those machines at the airport.
         And you remember the sadistic killer, Charles Manson,
who slaughtered over 12 people spread over two nights.  You
remember Charles Whitman, the man who in 1966 climbed up to the
tower of my alma mater at the University of Texas and proceeded
to kill 16 people, mostly students.  And of course we all
remember John Gacy of Chicago.  And we remember Ted Bundy who
killed between 15 and 25 young women -- God knows how many he
killed.  But if you were to add them all up, they wouldn't
equal the 168 or 169 killed in Oklahoma City.
         And so as Miss Wilkinson says to you, if the death
penalty has any meaning, then clearly it has meaning here.  And
of course that's true if this crime were of the nature of
Graham and Gacy and Bundy and Whitman and Manson, but it isn't.
It is a political crime.  It is an ideological crime, and that
is the difference.  It may be that you ultimately decide that
it is a distinction without a difference, that it means
nothing.  I hope that I am mistaken in that, because there are
larger stakes here.
         You see, as Mr. Burr told you and as you know from the
evidence and your own recollection, at Ruby Ridge, as
Mr. McVeigh saw it, the government killed 14-year-old Sammy
Weaver by shooting him in the back and killed his mother while
she held 18-month-old Elijah in her arms standing by her door.
And as Mr. Burr told you, Marshal Bill Degan, courageous member
of the United States Marshal Service, was likewise killed.  And
the government said that Mr. Weaver was guilty of Officer
Degan's murder.  The jury said he was not guilty.
         And at Waco, as you know, Mr. Burr told you -- and
it's in evidence -- five BATF agents were killed -- or I think
it's actually five Branch Davidians and four BATF agents were
killed.  And the government said that the surviving Branch
Davidians were guilty of those murders and conspiracy to commit
murder, and the jury said they were not guilty of murder and
conspiracy to commit murder.
         But in both cases, there was no accounting.  Yes, we
have the right under the First Amendment to petition the
government for redress of grievances; and yes, that sometimes
is successful; and yes, it should be reinforced.  But there was
not then nor has there ever been an accounting for the tragedy
at Ruby Ridge and the tragedy at Waco.
         As Mr. Burr told you, Mr. McVeigh's acts and thoughts,
no matter however misguided they may be, no matter how
misperceived, if in fact they are misperceptions, did not arise
in a vacuum.  They didn't just suddenly happen one night.  The
Government tells you it took place on the second anniversary,
it took planning and deliberation and careful concealment.  And
yes, all of that's true, there's no question about that.
         But the issue before you is how did an otherwise
normal human being who grew up in a small rural community in
Upstate New York, who was raised by loving parents, who was
member of a family with two sisters, who loved his grandfather
and whose grandfather loved him, who was a good enough student
in school that teachers a decade later not only remember him
but come in to testify on his behalf -- he was a good employee,
he was a good inspector and supervisor.  He was honest.  He was
the boy next door because the neighbors next door considered
him the boy next door.  They opened their house to him.  Next
door and across the street.  He baby-sat for their children.
He was alone with their children and their daughters.  They
played in each other's backyard.  They swam together.  They
hunted together.  They fished together.
         And then after high school, he entered the Army after
a short period of work.  And he wasn't just any soldier.  He
was promoted ahead of his peers, the lieutenant's gunner, first
across the line to liberate Kuwait, in the inner circle
protecting General Schwarzkopf at the armistice talks, and
ultimately awarded one of his country's highest military
decorations, the Bronze Star, and the Army Commendation Medal
for valor.
         So how did valor become cowardice?  How did loyal
service to the country become treason?  And how did a loving
youngster with all the advantages of life -- there is no abuse
excuse here, there is no excuse offered by that, there is no
defect here.  How did that change?
         Millions of Americans, millions, you know that, share
Mr. McVeigh's views.  They're as old as the struggle that led
to the ratification of the Constitution.  Mr. McVeigh acted on
them.  He acted on them because of what he understood had
happened but, more importantly, what had not happened, and so
he made it happen.  They hurt, so you hurt.  They died, so you
die.  They were innocent, you are innocent.  What a terrible
price for a failure to account, for a failure to instruct as

the government must.
         Where were all of those constitutional systems and
those processes that Ms. Wilkinson talked to you about that you
know exist?  Why were they not put into effect?  40 years ago
this summer, a president of the United States lived in this
city over here at 750 Lafayette in his mother-in-law's house,
and he was faced with a crisis of the same magnitude that split
this country like a fissure down the middle at a high school in
Little Rock, Arkansas, in which the full authority of the
federal government and the Supreme Court and the decisions of
the local United States district court were challenged, not by
a group of religious dissidents with unorthodox, nontraditional
views, but by all of the power of the governor of the state and
the resources joined at his command by other sympathizers
throughout the country and certainly in the South.  And by
patience, patience, patience, and firmness, he restored the
rule of law and not a single person died.  There was no 51-day
siege.  There was no Bradley tank.  There was no CS gas.  There
was firmness and leadership of the highest order.
         And in fact so firm and so strong and so persuasive
was that moral force that within less than 10 years, within
less than a decade, a way of life that had existed in much of
the South and the border states and other places no longer
(sic) ceased to exist.  The changes were so great that they are
today largely invisible.  No one recalls them.  No one recalls
them.  And two subsequent presidents building on his leadership
accomplished that.
         This tragedy at Ruby Ridge, this tragedy at Waco could
have been avoided.  This tragedy at Oklahoma City could have
been avoided.  And whatever I may say and whatever I may do in
this case in the defense of my client, I want to be held
accountable for those words because they are the truth, and you
know it.
         Now, that is certainly no justification for what
happened here, and I don't argue it's a justification.
Justification is a legal defense, and the elements of
justification are not present here.  If they were, I would have
raised them.  Nor do I offer it as a mitigating defense.  Some
people might; I don't.
         But even in this courtroom, even with all of the
lessons that we have come to see, there still was a little bit
of that elitism.  You don't have to work for a prominent
newspaper -- although he did, wrote for the New York Times,
which I suppose is about as prominent as you can get in the
United States -- to have credible views.  After all, Ernest
Hemingway was a free-lancer for the Kansas City Star.  You
don't have to work for Time or Newsweek to understand what
happened in Waco.  You don't have to live in the right
neighborhood or the right schools.  You don't have to be an
officer in the Army as opposed to an NCO, and you don't have to
be insulted because of that, and you don't have to demean
someone because we won the Persian Gulf War with a minimum of
casualties.
         We are all Americans, and we are all entitled to our
individual views.  The whole theme of this country today is the
accept -- is the acceptance of tolerance.  We tolerate
different life styles.  We tolerate different sexual
preferences.  We tolerate different hair lengths.  We tolerate
different backgrounds, ethnically.  We tolerate just about
everything except minority dissenting religious views.  And as
Miss Wilkinson told you, it is, after all, the First Amendment
that guarantees religious freedom.
         You know that valiant efforts were made to rescue the
people in Oklahoma City, heroic efforts.  That is why I had
Dr. Sullivan tell you that he was with the University of
Oklahoma faculty.  As a graduate of the University of Oklahoma
and as a Oklahoman by choice, not by accident of birth, I never
saw Oklahoma stand more . . . the image of the Grapes of Wrath
that John Steinbeck laid upon us, the Joad family in the
1930's, was erased forever by the bravery and the heroism.
         But you know -- or you will know, if you watch the
videos and the magazine articles and read them, that there were
unfortunately no similar heroic efforts at Waco; because, you
see, they were marginalized.  They were members of a cult led
by some sinful messiah.  Wasn't that what the Waco newspaper
called him on the morning of the raid?  And you had a situation
here with the man who just a few years before had been arrested
on the charge of attempted murder by a telephone call from the
church.  And so now on a winter morning, two carloads of agents
come up in cattle cars.  It wasn't a compound.  They had lived
there 50 years, about as peaceful as any other members of the
society with some sinners and some malcontents, I'm sure, and
assaulted.
         What were people thinking when they thought that?
Mr. Burr referred to it as the militarization of law
enforcement.  It wasn't so much the militarization of law
enforcement as it was the commercialization of law enforcement.
         Now, you may not care about that.  You may say, well,
we've decided that he killed 168 people, and that's all we want
to know.  Leave that for Congress, the courts to decide.  Well,
you can do that, of course.  Except the Court has told you that
you sit as the moral judgment of the community.
         Of course the Government asks for Mr. McVeigh's death.
In more than 30 years of the practice of law and the defense of
countless criminal cases across north central Oklahoma, how
many times have I seen a prosecutor, as Miss Wilkinson, turn to
the defendant and point to him and say there's the thief,
there's the murderer, there's the coward, we don't ask for
emotion or sympathy for the victims, we want justice.  And I'm
sure those views are sincerely held and undoubtedly appropriate
in many cases.
         But something happened here, something happened.  What
happened was that Tim McVeigh didn't come to hold his beliefs
about Waco in that vacuum that I mentioned to you.  There was
the input of his experience.  For, you see, Tim McVeigh had
trained with CS gas.  He had driven -- or not driven -- he had
been in a Bradley tank.  He had been to war.  And just as Miss
Wilkinson told you, who could ever have imaged that an American
citizen would kill his own in an act of political protest of
this magnitude, who could have imaged what happened at Waco on
April the 19th?
         Some of you remember the Vietnam war and how public
attitudes changed.  What was the thing that changed public
attitude?  It wasn't just the mounting casualties, it was the
way they were presented.  Every night, five nights a week, 7:00
Eastern Daylight Time or Eastern Standard Time, Walter
Cronkite, Howard K. Smith, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley
began the nightly news which for a period of five years almost
inevitably led to films of the carnage and violence and death
in Vietnam.  And gradually as people saw that and understood
what it meant, right or wrong and whether you agree or disagree
with our policy, I don't think there can be any disagreement
that seeing that changed America's perceptions, individually.
         Well, 51 days was Waco.  Every night on the television
American citizen vs. American citizen.  People whose religious
belief led them to believe they must survive and then perish in
the tribulation in an apocalypse that was upon them were seeing
a self-fulfilling prophesy.  And as you will see from the
evidence, if you read it, the FBI was advised by its own
talented people, you're playing into the hands of this man,
you're making it come true to these people.
         So people like Tim McVeigh and others were stirred up
by that, and there isn't anything new about that.  You know,
American history is not apple pie, it isn't.  You go back all
the way to the Whiskey Rebellion and Shay's Rebellion in
western Massachusetts where General Washington had to call out
the troops to put down insurrection; and when the country was
formed, you know that the way the price for ratification of the
of the Constitution was, it had to be ten amendments limiting
the federal government.  The federal government, not the state
government, the federal government.  And you know that the
abolitionists and those who wanted to protect slavery engaged
in bitter conflict, murderous conflict, all the way to bleeding
Kansas and the Lecompton Constitution and finally ending on
John Brown's raid in Harper's Ferry where he and his
abolitionists slaughtered dozens of men, women, and children to
get arms to give to the slaves in the south.  A conflict so
terrible, a Civil War in which more Americans lost their lives
than all of the wars since then was fought.  And then from that
industrial might came the great labor strife, here in Colorado
some of the greatest battles in which men, women and children
lost their lives were fought.  And then on down.  The civil
rights struggle.
         So violence and the ability of the United States to
adjust to it, to redress the grievances, to have an accounting
has been important.  And we have had that, sometimes at
terrible cost; and you know from your own high school studies,
the people like John Calhoun, the great southern statesmen,
talked about the concurrent majority, that some things were
just so important to Americans that you just simply couldn't do
it by 51 percent vote, you had to have some consensus.  We seem
to have gone a long way from that today.
         For those of us who believe in gun control, we know
that Waco set that back a hundred years.  It was another one of
those self-fulfilling prophesies come true.
         We live in an information age: television, radio, CB,
Internet, computers.  You've seen that information.  A few
years ago, you may recall the Progressive magazine printed the
design for the H-bomb.  You know from this case that you can
buy Homemade C-4 and learn how to make bombs, that 20,000
people purchase that book, 200,000 over 19 years purchased The 
Turner Diaries.  The Soldier of Fortune has to be profitable,
so there must be people that read it.  There must be people
that see these videos.  Mr. McVeigh was so impressed by it, he
spliced them together and created his own video.
         He is not alone.  His fears are not alone.  Neither
are his beliefs, there are others who share those.  He is not a
demon though surely his act was demonic.  And as Mr. McVeigh --
Mr. Burr told you, Mr. McVeigh could very easily be considered
the boy next door.  And that is what is serious about it
because, you see, he is not an emotional or physical
aberration.  He is every man.
         Now, that's the way he saw Waco.  I'm not here to tell
you you should see it that way.  I'm not here to tell you I see
it that way.  But I am here to tell you that it is real in his
mind and real in other people's minds.
         When Mr. Mackey talked to you the other day, he used
two expressions repeatedly.  He said there's more, there's
more.  And think about or think back, so there is more, there's
more to this than just a guy getting a Ryder truck.  Think
back.  I agree with Mr. Mackey.
         There are -- and I don't know what the Court's
pleasure is, but if you wanted to break or if you want me to
continue, I will certainly do that, but I'm at a place now
where I intend to move into the second half of what I have to
say.
         THE COURT:  I think we'll take the break.
         MR. JONES:  Thank you, your Honor.
         THE COURT:  And, members of the jury, we're going to
recess for about 20 minutes, as we customarily have at this
time of morning; and of course, as I have customarily cautioned
to you, you must -- and must do so again at this time, please
let the matter rest at this time, avoid discussion among
yourselves and of course with anybody else concerning the
issues that you are to decide, recognizing that you're going to
hear more argument and you're going to hear from me on the law.
So the matter is not given to you yet for decision.  You're
excused now for 20 minutes.
    (Jury out at 10:18 a.m.)
         THE COURT:  We'll recess for 20 minutes.
    (Recess at 10:19 a.m.)
    (Reconvened at 10:36 a.m.)
         THE COURT:  Be seated, please.
    (Jury in at 10:37 a.m.)
         THE COURT:  Mr. Jones, you may continue.
         MR. JONES:  Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm going to
say to you now, I do not need notes.
         Tim McVeigh is going to die in prison.  There is no
doubt about that.  The question is when will he die in prison:
sooner, or later?  The Government asks you for him to die
sooner.  I ask for you to let him die later.
         But there are three reasons why I ask for that, and
they really don't have much to do with Tim McVeigh or his
bringing-up or being in the military.  They have to do with the
United States of America, you and me.
         But I want to be frank with you and tell you that
there is no way, as Mrs. Frazer told you, Tim's mother -- there
is no way that you or I or even her will know the depth, the
sorrow, the loss, the pain that these people in my native
state -- not my native state, I suppose, my adopted state.  And
certainly, Ms. Wilkinson has eloquently and movingly and with
detail reminded you of that; and you should be reminded of it.
And Tim McVeigh should be reminded of it every day of the rest
of his life, however long that may be.  And it should stand as
a memorial in much the same way as the Vietnam War Memorial in
Washington stands, because they were innocent people.
         Where Mr. Tritico grew up, in the Heights area of
Houston, back many, many years ago, when I was going through
college, working nights and on the weekends, those summer
evenings, I worked at a Houston institution that he'll know,
the old Heights Funeral Home in Houston, Texas.  And it was
kind of an unusual place.  It was formed and organized by the
wife of the principal of John Reagan High School Ed Waltrip and
her son, Bobby.  We all called her "Old Lady Waltrip," except,
of course, when she was around.  And we always knew when she
was around because her cane come tapping on the floor; so
wherever we were, whether we were out in the back hosing down
the cars or shining them up or moving flowers or taking care of
a family, answering the phone, the word would pass,
"Ms. Waltrip is on the floor."
         Now, in my day, Heights Funeral Home was the largest
funeral home in Houston.  Today it's the largest in the world.
They handle over a thousand funerals.  And one day in my
impetuous youth and curiosity, Ms. Waltrip came by my
workstation, and I made -- she said, "How are you doing, Jay
Beck?"  She knew my dad, so she knew my nickname.
         And I said, "Ms. Waltrip, I'm pretty busy here getting
ready.  We've got five funerals tomorrow."
         And she stopped, made me sit down.  And she said, "We
don't have five funerals tomorrow.  We have one funeral
tomorrow and then another.  And that funeral you're working on
is the most important funeral we have, because that's a family.
We'll have a thousand funerals a year, Jay Beck.  We have one
at a time for that family, for that individual."
         So there in the midst of so much death, I learned a
valuable lesson about life.
         Now, if I thought for one minute that executing Tim
McVeigh would restore Mr. Galen's sight, restore Daina
Bradley's leg, take Baylee Almon out of the arms of that
fireman and put him (sic) in the arm of his mother, there is no
question that we would do so without a moment's hesitation.
And if I thought and believed -- and I thought you believed --
that executing Tim McVeigh would somehow or the other end this
pain and fill this vacuum -- now another kind of vacuum -- in
these people's lives, in a heartbeat, wouldn't have to leave
the jury box.  That's how simple it would be.
         But there are larger issues here.  And science,
metaphysics and medicine and psychology will not accomplish
that, however desirable and enviable and attainable a goal that
we would all want.  But it isn't going to happen.
         There are, it seems to me, three reasons to spare
Mr. McVeigh's life in the sense that it's not a federal jury
order of execution.  Life as he knows it is over with.  There
is no question about that.  What he's faced with, given his
age, probably a normal life expectancy of somewhere between 40
and 50 years, if he's given life without ever being released.
And boy, life without ever being released means that in the
federal system.  No doubt about that.  What it means is day in
and day out until sometime pretty close to the half-century
mark of the next century, he will die an old man, carried out
by the coroner.  And every day of his life, he can never
escape, never escape what has happened here.
         You can't watch that much television or that much
tick-tack-toe or write that many letters home, or your one or
two or however many hours a day of exercise you get.  You can't
run from it.  There is, as the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre
said, "No Exit" from that reality.
         Now, you might say, well, if that's true, then how
come all these people that are on death row fight and stay
alive?  Well, they're not all fighting to stay alive.  And it
may not be just the Government that would like to see
Mr. McVeigh receive an order of execution.
         But I don't think that we should be in the business of
letting the Government decide who lives and dies, because, you
see, there is a couple of other things that have kind of been
forgotten by the wayside in this second stage.
         You now know, because the Court instructed you back at
the end of the first stage, what a conspiracy is.  You also
know what it takes to be a member of that conspiracy, to be
criminally liable.  You may not be prosecuted for being a
member of it, but you are a member of it.
         Michael and Lori Fortier, I respectfully submit, if
you'll recall those instructions, were members of this
conspiracy.  They aided and abetted it just as surely as you're
sitting here: ordered fake IDs and typed up the name Robert
Kling, went out to the desert to test a bomb, looked for a
place to store explosives, lied to the FBI about it, helped
finance the bombing by selling those guns and giving $2,000 to
Terry Nichols.  And the Government told you they didn't even
need them.
         Janice (sic) Coyne can never hold her child again.
Diane Leonard's husband cannot ever come home.  But Lori
Fortier can hold her child, a normal child; and her husband
will some day come home.  And all they had to do was pick up a
telephone.  How in the name of God or any other deity can a
woman who has given birth, has a small child, who knows what's
coming -- how can you justify what has happened to her?  She is
as much a part of this as your verdict found my client was, and
so is her husband.
         We don't live in a country -- or we shouldn't live in
a country -- where Sammy the Bull can kill 23 people but
because he is willing to testify against John Gotti or other
killers, he makes a deal, particularly if you don't need them
or if it's just maybe helpful to the case, just prepares a
narrative, a chronology.
         There is no way, I respectfully submit, with a clear
conscience that you can say this person dies and this person
walks, not even fingerprinted.
         That's the first reason.
         There is a second reason.  You will remember from the
first stage -- and I believe the Court will tell you, may have
already told you, as I recall -- that you can consider
everything that happened in the first stage.  Evidence doesn't
need to be re-proved.  And you remember what happened in the
first stage, and you remember that his Honor read to you
portions of the indictment.  And among those portions of the
indictment read to you -- and you maybe even carried it in the
instructions back in the jury room -- was the fact that the
United States grand jury sitting in Oklahoma City, which heard
secret testimony, charged Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh and
others unknown.
         Dead men do not tell tales.  I say again the
Government may not be the only people that want my client
executed.
         MR. HARTZLER:  I'm sorry, your Honor.  I believe this
is objectionable.
         THE COURT:  Overruled.
         MR. JONES:  You know from all the evidence that you
heard, this was a case about Tim McVeigh.  Mr. Hartzler told
you that.  He told you, You may have unanswered questions;
you're not requiring us to answer those unless it relates to
Tim McVeigh.  And each of you said no.  He was very honest and
very professional about that.  But you also know you have
questions, maybe not about Tim McVeigh -- well, you don't have
questions about Tim McVeigh.  You found him guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt, so you don't have questions about him.

         But you remember the rest of the evidence that is not
here.  You remember the rest of the story, the rest of the
instructions.
         Surely the Government is not going to repudiate the
grand jury indictment that charges others unknown.  You may
well consider from everything that you have seen in this
courtroom, from your observations of the participants, from the
evidence that you have heard, from the Court's instructions and
your deliberation, that two people share a terrible secret.
One of them will not tell you and the other one cannot by his
oath of office, but the one that can may.
         There is a third reason.  You have to make the first
step to restore domestic tranquility.  You can't do it all.
You now know that Oklahoma City started something.  Montana,
Arizona, Texas, Atlanta:  They're all familiar to you.  You're
the moral conscience of the community.
         The Government never could convince Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, who stole atomic secrets, to talk.  They went to
their death without talking.  We don't want a Lee Harvey Oswald
here.  We don't want an Oliver Stone movie.  We don't want a
Warren Commission report.
         45 years is a long time, and there is no statute of
limitation for murder.  And I don't care how eloquent or how
moving or how sincere or how passionate the Government may be
in its closing argument.  The chapter -- the book of the
Oklahoma City bombing is not closed.  Do not close it.  Do not
permit others to close it.  Let there be a full accounting, not
a partial accounting.  But you have to take the first step.
         There is an old proverb:  A journey of a thousand
miles -- and boy, this is a thousand-mile journey -- it begins
with a single step.  I cannot take that step, Mr. Hartzler
cannot take it, the Judge cannot take it, and others have not
taken it.
         You must take it.
         Some of you of my generation will remember that when
you were in elementary school there used to be a magazine that
came four or five times a year called Ideals.  It was a slick,
colored publication with beautiful pictures.  Sitting down in
Houston, Texas, that's how I learned about wheat fields in
Kansas and the purple mountain majesties of Colorado.  And on
the back of that booklet or magazine -- and what an appropriate
title, Ideals -- it always ended with the words of one of our
great national songs.  How far we have come from that.  But you
remember it:  "America, America, God shed his grace on thee;
and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea."
         Now, it is time for this madness to end.  It is time
to reconcile.  It is time to find out the full truth.  It is
time for the full accounting.  It is time to say, 250, 270
people who died as a result of Waco and Oklahoma City -- we
must move on.  We must find everyone.  We must let the country
know that there is a legitimate redress of grievances; that we
don't cover it up, we don't just prosecute and then when the
jury acquits them, we just sort of close the chapter on what
happened.
         That is what this case is about.  It's not about
saving my client's life.
         Thank you.
         THE COURT:  Mr. Hartzler.
         MR. HARTZLER:  Thank you, your Honor.
                       REBUTTAL ARGUMENT
         MR. HARTZLER:  May it please the Court.
         THE COURT:  Mr. Hartzler.
         MR. HARTZLER:  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, good
morning.
         Seven weeks ago, I -- seven weeks ago today, I sat
here before you and told you a story about Helena Garrett and
what happened to her and her son, Tevin, on April 19, 1995.  A
lot has happened since then.  You've heard a lot of evidence
and information.  You've had your deliberations.  You delivered
your guilty verdict.  And I suspect in the months and years to
come, your memories of the details of the evidence, the names
of the witnesses, even the most significant witnesses, the
dates, the various locations, your memories will begin to fade.
You'll forget a lot of the details about the process; but there
is certainly one thing that all of us, everyone who has been
part of this, will forever remember, and that is a great
tragedy befell Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, a terrible,
terrible historic tragedy.  But unlike many of the tragedies
that we've known of in history, this wasn't brought on by an
act of God.  It wasn't a flood or an earthquake.  It wasn't a
ship running into an iceberg.  It wasn't a plague or deadly
disease.  This was an act of a man.  This was a premeditated
act, an act of injustice.
         Timothy McVeigh got to write the first word in the
history of this crime; and what he wrote was "injustice."
         Now, as Mr. Jones has indicated, everyone agrees,
there is nothing you can do to bring back to life the people
that have died.  There is nothing you can do to make whole
those people that were maimed.  But there is something you can
do.  You have a responsibility to write the final word on the
history of this crime.  It's your responsibility to do justice,
and I'm sure you'll do that.
         As you know, I was the first lawyer to speak to you
seven weeks ago after the Judge introduced us, and I'm the last
lawyer that has an opportunity to speak to you before he
concludes the case with his instructions; so I feel sort of
like a set of bookends, with seven weeks of substantial
education about what happened in Oklahoma City on April 19
crammed in between.  And you've had in addition tremendous
education in the judicial process, I believe.
         I recall from jury selection that some of you, like
most people who were called for jury selection, had some
initial reluctance, I suspect, to serve on the jury.  But from
my experience, I would be surprised if most of you don't think
that it was a rewarding experience.  I certainly hope so.  And
on behalf of the lawyers in this case -- and I'm sure I speak
for the defense lawyers as well -- we thank you for your
attentiveness.  We thank you for your indulgence.  I appreciate
your patience particularly in those moments in this case when
things didn't go quite as smoothly as we would have hoped.
         And I also, of course, thank you for your acceptance
of responsibility.  It was clear to everyone when you
deliberated last week or so that you took your responsibility
seriously, and I'm confident that you'll execute that
responsibility as seriously in this stage of the case.
         I also need to ask you for another indulgence.  You
can see that I spent some time last week and again this morning
in writing up some notes.  I'm not going to be able to regale
you with tales from history and from American novels like
Mr. Jones did.  I can't stand up at the side and tell you a
folksy story about Old Lady Walton (sic) and things of that
sort.  I'm going to sit here and refer to my notes; but I'm
confident that you will base your decision on the power of the
evidence in the case, on the moral power of the evidence and
the facts of this case, and not on the eloquence of the
lawyers.
         So I thank you for that indulgence.
         As the Judge will instruct you, the initial findings
you have to make relate to whether Mr. McVeigh acted
intentionally and then whether or not certain aggravating
factors have been proven.
         You sat through the trial.  You heard the evidence.
You heard the information during the sentencing stage.  I'm not
going to go back over what Mr. Ryan and Ms. Wilkinson this
morning told you.  I have complete confidence that when you get
back and start your deliberations and you see the forms of the
verdict that you can go through and easily conclude, easily
conclude, that Mr. McVeigh acted with precisely the intention
that we all know and that our aggravating factors have proven
beyond a reasonable doubt.
         The aggravation, of course, is overwhelming.  There is
really no issue about that.  Defense lawyers this morning have
so much as conceded that, but what I do want to discuss with
you are the mitigating factors that have been raised and that
both Mr. Burr and Mr. Jones have talked about; and they really
fall into three relatively simple categories.  You'll see that
there are a number of mitigating factors you'll have to
consider, and you'll have to decide whether or not you find
those factors to be true.  That has nothing to do whatsoever
with the weight you give the factors.  I'm simply talking about
the list of mitigating factors.  There are really three
categories.
         The first is the "he was such a good boy" assertion,
the second is -- second category is he was a great soldier, and
the third is he was angry about Waco.  And then I'll talk
briefly about the matters that Mr. Jones just raised after the
break.  He gave you three additional reasons.
         I want you to know those are really outside the law of
aggravation and mitigation.  The Judge will not instruct you
on -- they are not mitigating factors.  They are outside the
mitigation and aggravating factors you'll consider, but I'll
address them nevertheless.
         So let me go back to the three categories.  I'll talk
about each in turn.  I would like to talk mostly about the "he
was such a good boy" assertion.
         To be sure, we do not dispute that Timothy McVeigh was
a good boy, and my emphasis is on the term "was."  He's now a
man.  He's changed.  He's no longer the good boy that he was.
         Yesterday, we saw a photograph of Timothy McVeigh with
his father.  They were at a younger age.  I believe it was --
forgive my memory -- three or four years ago; and they had
their arms around each other.  And you saw Mr. McVeigh, who was
practically mournful as he looked at that photo and recalled
the young man that he raised and loved.  And everyone in the
courtroom saw the video of Timothy McVeigh as a child, and I
suspect that all of us felt the same sadness as we watched that
video and saw that photograph.
         And I believe the sadness really has two sources.  The
first, of course, is it saddens us to think that this man must
die for the crime committed.  But there is another source of
the sadness; and I think that sadness arises from what we saw
when Mr. McVeigh, Timothy's father, took the stand.  There is a
mournfulness about it because we are already grieving the loss
of that innocent young man.  He's gone.  It's a matter in the
past.  That smiling young man you saw in that photograph -- he
is not here, and he has not been here in the courtroom with us.
         The man that you have seen committed mass murder.  And
there is no one who can commit that kind of mass murder, there
is no one that can commit the crime that occurred in this case,
who can still be a smiling, happy-go-lucky young man who worked
at Burger King.  They are different people.
         So please, you should not feel responsible for wiping
that smile off that young man's face.  That smile was gone some
years ago, when his hatred boiled over and he engaged and --
planned and engaged in this act of mass murder.  You should not
feel responsible for taking away the smile.  It's been gone for
a while.
         So what is the point of this "good boy" assertion on
behalf of the defense?  I mean, it really doesn't do much to
mitigate the crime.  It doesn't reduce his responsibility.
         And ironically, although it's the defense that
presents it as some kind of mitigation, it really presents you
with a no-excuses defense.  I mean, Timothy McVeigh did not
grow up with a drug-addicted mother and father.  He didn't grow
up in a crime-ridden neighborhood.  He wasn't an abandoned
child.  I mean, you've heard these stories about children with
just terrible, terrible pasts, kids that are born with fetal
alcohol syndrome, or they're subjected to violence in their
home, they're taught to hate, they experience hate in their
homes, they're deprived of moral guidance.  He went to church
up until eleventh grade.  He doesn't suffer any mental deficit.
         It's really a no-excuses mitigation claim, which is
odd.
         What the "good boy" assertion tells you is that he had
a great childhood and, as Mr. Burr suggested to you, he grew up
like many of us.  I mean, Mr. Burr said to you that he could be
like your brother or your son or your grandson.
         And I think that really is the point.  It's not so
much that it genuinely reduces culpability that he had a good
childhood, a great childhood.  It doesn't reduce culpability
for his acts; but there is some suggestion that because he was
a good child, you should spare him, because he's more like us
than somebody who didn't have the same childhood, somebody who
was different.
         Well, having a good childhood is no basis for sparing
someone's life.  I mean, if that was the case, imagine how few
cases -- none -- could involve capital punishment.  I mean,
everyone at some point was good in their childhood.  People
aren't born killers, and they're certainly not born mass
murderers.
         But I think the point is in addition to sort of
softening his image up, making him not so much of the demon as
you might have thought when you first heard about this crime,
it's also to create some sympathy.  It's to create an emotional
bond between you and Timothy McVeigh.
         I mean, Mr. Burr so much as said so when he uses that
phrase that he almost used again today, saying that he could be
your son or your grandson or your brother.  "He's one of us" is
the suggestion.
         And indeed, there probably are some surface
similarities between Timothy McVeigh and some of us or some of
your families.  And of course, some of the things you saw in
that videotape yesterday, I'm sure, reminded you of things that
you've experienced in your childhood: nice, middle-class home,
public school, celebrated Halloween, ran track, had Garfield
sheets and likes pop.  So what?  Where does that take us?  That
means that his life should be spared because he had a
background similar to us?  And it's more acceptable to decide
to execute someone who has a different background?
         Well, that's not especially an American concept; that
we have a double standard.  Surely the defense is not
suggesting that it's okay to execute someone who grew up in a
foreign country or in an inner city ghetto, someone from the
lower class, but we impose a double standard.  That's not
America.
         We have equal treatment for people from different
socioeconomic backgrounds; so I urge you to reject that kind of
emotional bond of "he's somebody like us; oh, gee, it's too
bad; he's not a horrible person; he's sort of like us."
         Give equal treatment.  Disregard the fact that he came
from a privileged background.  Treat him as you would anyone,
privileged or underprivileged, and in effect accept the fact
that he had a good childhood; but reject it as having any
weight in reducing his culpability.
         I also suggest that you reject this effort to create
an emotional bond between you and Timothy McVeigh for another
reason.  If there is to be an emotional bond created in this
case, then I suggest it should be with the scores and scores of
innocent men, women and children who were killed, not with
Timothy McVeigh.  Those are America's sons and daughters, not
the man who murdered them.
         The most offensive part about this alleged mitigation
is the suggestion that you somehow reward Timothy McVeigh for
having a good childhood, you somehow reward him for playing --
having the opportunity to play King of the Mountain and for
collecting comic books and for hosting a haunted house and
baby-sitting and working at Burger King and having Garfield
sheets and eating Pop Tarts; that that's somehow something that
should you cause to say, "Oh, we'll be lenient because of those
things."
         I'm sure I don't need to remind you that Tevin Garrett
will never, ever play King of the Mountain.  Timothy McVeigh

deprived him of that opportunity, took it away when he killed
Tevin Garrett.
         And think of little Brandon Denny.  Remember the young
man, the young boy that we saw on the videotape that he limped
and he could hardly use his -- he tried to hold those little
animal crackers with his right hand and they fell out.  Can you
imagine that child in his neighborhood trying to succeed at
King of the Mountain or being king of anything?  For the rest
of his life, he's been deprived by Timothy McVeigh of the kind
of opportunity that Timothy McVeigh because of his background
got to enjoy.
         Recall Aaron and Elijah Coverdale.  They were two
young boys.  You saw them depicted there at the child-care
center, and Helena Garrett when she testified in the guilt
phase talked a little bit about them.  One of them was a little
boy that came up and comforted her little boy, patted him on
the back when she was leaving and he was upset.  Well, just
think of those two young boys, if they had an opportunity
ever -- they're dead now -- if they had an opportunity to grow
up and be young teenagers.  Wouldn't they love to have had the
comic book collection that Timothy McVeigh enjoyed?  Just
imagine those two boys sharing comic books, exchanging comic
books, reading to each other.  They would love to have the
comic book collection that Timothy McVeigh had.
         And it would bring great pride to their mother and
their grandmother to see them enjoy that kind of thing, the
same pride and joy that I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. McVeigh enjoyed;
but they had that opportunity: Mr. and Mrs. McVeigh.  The
grandmother and mother of Elijah and Aaron Coverdale will never
have that opportunity because Timothy McVeigh murdered them and
destroyed that opportunity.
         Haunted houses.  Kids love haunted houses.  Just
imagine Baylee Almon, the little girl that was in the arms of
the fireman -- she was dead at the time -- or Jaci Coyne.  Her
mother, Sharon -- Mr. Jones referred to her as "Janice."  It
was Sharon Coyne that testified here and talked about how her
little daughter was just developing independence.  She was just
starting to take a step up the stairs.  Those two little girls
now would be about three years old; and at Halloween maybe
three and a half.  Can you imagine how those two little girls
would squeal at a haunted house.  They would love to go through
a haunted house.  They will never have the opportunity.
         And you can figure it:  They were only about one year
old.  They never had the opportunity.  Timothy McVeigh had
opportunity after opportunity.  He set up haunted houses, went
to haunted houses.  He enjoyed that opportunity as a child.
But he took it away from Baylee Almon and little Jaci Coyne.
They will never see a haunted house.
         I could go on, of course, with other examples, not
just about children.  Think of some of the mothers that you met
who testified here.  Some of the mothers -- think about some of
the mothers you didn't meet, some of them that Timothy McVeigh
murdered.  Wouldn't they get a kick out of seeing their grown
children still use Garfield sheets?
         Think of some of the fathers that are no longer with
us because Timothy McVeigh murdered them and the joy that it
would bring some morning to get up and throw some Pop Tarts
into the toaster and share them with their children.  They will
never, ever have that opportunity.  Those are the kinds of
things that Mr. McVeigh, Timothy McVeigh, enjoyed for most of
his 29 years here on earth.
         But he's deprived scores and scores of people of those
very kind of opportunities.
         Some of you, of course, know how important graduation
is in our lives.  Remember how Timothy McVeigh's grandfather
was portrayed in the videotape we saw yesterday, proudly
putting his arm around the shoulder of Timothy McVeigh after
his high school graduation.
         Well, think back to Mrs. Westberry, who testified
about her husband.  She said the little five-year-old grandson,
David, referred to him as "Paw Paw," and he wanted to go to
heaven to be with his "Paw Paw." Grandfather's name was Bob
Westberry.  That was her husband's name.  Wouldn't he have
loved to see little David graduate from high school, get
married -- any of his grandchildren, to see any of them, to
experience that pride, to see those grandchildren graduate, get
married?
         Well, I ask you to do this:  When you make your
decision about life or death in this case, ask very concrete,
specific questions of yourself.
         Bob Westberry will never see and never even hear about
graduation of any of his grandchildren; but if you do as
Mr. Jones suggests, if you give life to Timothy McVeigh so he
can live another 40-, 50-plus years in prison, ask yourselves,
what will he hear about?  Will he hear about his sister
Jennifer's graduation when she graduates from college?  Will he
have an opportunity to experience that joy?  Of course, he
might not be able to attend the graduation, but he'll surely
hear about it.  He'll have that opportunity.  He'll have the
very opportunity that he stole, that he tore from so many, many
people.  And question whether or not he should continue to have
that joy when he took it from so many others.
         There are two other points I'd like to make about this
"he was a good boy" mitigation.  The first emphasizes again the
past tense; that he was a good boy, but he is no more.  Recall
that on Monday, neighbors -- the McVeighs' neighbors, who were
referred to as "Mr. and Mrs. D," came in and testified and they
said that Timothy McVeigh visited them before he went off to
the Persian War (sic) and when he predicted that he would come
back home in a body bag, they both saw there was a tear in his
eye.
         Ask yourselves what was the point of that testimony?
Why was that brought out in this case?
         Well, the point was to soften his image, to make him
appear as though he's someone who has feelings.  Remember, that
happened several years ago.  And maybe he had feelings then;
but please consider what the nature of those feelings are.  Not
a single witness testified at any other time that Timothy
McVeigh ever had a tear in his eye except when he was concerned
about his own welfare, except when he was concerned and worried
about his own death.
         You'll recall Michael Fortier testified he was with
Timothy McVeigh in downtown Oklahoma City and he said, "What
about the innocent people?  What about the secretaries in the
building?"
         And Timothy McVeigh said, "Well, they're like storm
troopers.  They may be innocent, but they must die as part of
an evil empire."
         He wasn't shedding any tears then.  And you know he
wasn't shedding any tears as he fled to the Mercury parked
nearby after he detonated or set off the fuse of the bomb.  He
wasn't shedding tears.  He was protecting his own ears,
protecting his hearing with the earplugs later found in his
pocket.
         And that's because while they soften the image, or try
to, with that tear in his eye as he was leaving for the Persian
Gulf, there is only one person he cares about.  He cares
nothing about the innocent men, women and children who were
killed in Oklahoma City.
         My final point about the "good boy" defense relates to
the testimony about his enjoyment of the Super Bowl.  You heard
a couple of his Army buddies talk to us about how they used to
kid each other because his favorite team was the Buffalo Bills,
and you even heard some good-natured questioning of the
witnesses by the attorneys.
         And I suppose the point was to portray Timothy McVeigh
as an all-American boy, to make him appear as a sports fan like
so many young men in America, faithful to a particular team.
         And what it said to me was, gee, this is something he
really enjoys, having a favorite team, following the Buffalo
Bills, watching the Super Bowl.
         Well, remember Laura Kennedy?  She was a young woman
that came in.  They only had one child, she and her husband,
Blake.  They're having some difficulty dealing with his loss.
Remember, she's the woman that said his clothes are still
hanging in the closet.  They haven't had any other -- any more
children since he was killed.
         Now, I don't know what Blake Kennedy would have grown
up to be.  None of us can know.  And I don't assume that he
ever would have played in the Super Bowl.  But who knows?  He
certainly lost that opportunity.  He lost the opportunity not
only to play in the Super Bowl, he lost the opportunity to
watch the Super Bowl.  He lost the opportunity to pick up a
football, to wear his jersey for his favorite team, to root for
his favorite team for years and years and years to come.
Timothy McVeigh took that opportunity from him.
         And again, I ask you:  Think of your decision in these
concrete terms.  If he remains in jail, as Mr. Jones has
suggested to you, if he stays there for scores of years,
40-plus, 50, maybe, well, maybe he -- Mr. Jones said, you know,
how much television can you watch?  I don't know if he'll have
a television.  I don't know what the facilities will be like in
prison, and I'm not suggesting you guess.  But you know he'll
have access to news.  You know he can still follow the Buffalo
Bills.  He can still hear about the Super Bowl.
         Should he have that opportunity?  I mean, that's
really what you're granting him, if you give him life.  It's
the opportunity to experience those great joys, those great
pleasures in life that he deprived so many people of: caring
about graduation, following a favorite team, listening or
hearing about the Super Bowl.
         I said at the beginning you have an opportunity to do
justice, really to correct an injustice.  And I question
whether or not it is justice for Timothy McVeigh to continue to
enjoy the Super Bowl, to follow the Buffalo Bills, to hear
about family graduations and births of children and things of
that sort.
         I've only one point to make about this second
mitigating factor or category, which is the "good soldier"
claim.
         My point is, first of all, we don't dispute that he
was a good soldier; but how far does that go in terms of
mitigation?  And I think you can answer that question by
considering a hypothetical.  Imagine Timothy McVeigh, with all
his personal characteristics, with all his abilities as a
soldier but coming from a foreign country.  Imagine that he did
not fight for America.
         Well, what inherent value would it have that he was a
good soldier?  What would it make a difference whether he was a
good soldier, a good sailor, a good surfer, a good plumber?
Being a good soldier in itself doesn't have any inherent value,
doesn't mitigate, doesn't reduce his culpability.  The
implication of all this "good soldier" allegation is that he
fought for our country; that somehow he's a patriot that fought
for our country; that he supports America.
         Well, that may have been in the past tense again.
That may have been.  But it is no longer, because he changed
sides.  He didn't fight for America when he drove that bomb
into downtown Oklahoma City.  He fought against America.
         We have a word for people like that, and it's not
"good soldier," it's "traitor."  He became a traitor.
         Just excuse me for one moment.
         Oh, yes.  In this respect, I urge you to give special
consideration to one particular mitigating factor.  It's the
very first one you'll see.  There is a list of mitigating
factors.  It's the very first one, No. 1; and it reads -- and
Mr. Burr suggested that you should find this:  "Timothy McVeigh
believed deeply in the ideals upon which the United States was
founded."  And you're asked to insert the number of jurors that
so find after that.
         "Timothy McVeigh believed deeply in the ideals upon
which the United States was founded."
         No one who rejects our democratic processes and
murders innocent men, women, and children can be said to
believe deeply or even shallowly in the ideals on which this
great nation was founded.  His actions reveal just the
opposite.
         You'll get this list of mitigating factors.  There are
certainly some that you'll probably unanimously find.  You
won't give them much weight, a lot of them, as I've suggested.
You won't give them much weight, but you'll find them.  We
won't dispute some of the factors that are listed.
         But that one, one that I'm specifically addressing,
please, I urge you:  Don't find that this mass murderer, this
coward, who killed innocent men, women and children, this man
who betrayed the Constitution and turned his hatred against his
own government -- don't find, please, any of you, that he
believed deeply in the ideals of his founding fathers.  I urge
each of you put a zero in the spot after Mitigating Factor
No. 1.  Please.
         The third category, of course, is the -- he was angry
about Waco, which, you know, there are some mitigating factors
about it.  Mr. Jones just announced to you that he doesn't
regard it as justification, he doesn't view it as a defense,
and then he went so far as to say that it's not really even
mitigation.  So I mean, clearly it's not justification.  No one
could possibly think that you can commit a homicide and then
justify it on the basis of some political concern.  I mean,
where would you draw the line on that:  "I was upset about
Vietnam and so I killed innocent Americans"; or "I was upset
about desegregation, so I started killing people"?  Even asking
the question makes it seem sort of absurd.  "I was upset about
capital gains taxes, so I started killing people"?  It's
ridiculous.  It's no justification or defense, and the defense
lawyers concede that.  But it's listed as a mitigating factor,
and yet Mr. Jones just told you he doesn't see it as any
mitigation.  So why are we talking about Waco?  What was the
point of Waco?
         Indeed, I challenge you to try to repeat the argument
that the defense is making here:  Timothy McVeigh bombed the
Murrah Building because he was angry about Waco and
therefore . . . what?  Therefore what?  Where do we go with
that argument?  It seems to me that they're not so much arguing
that he should get a lower sentence because of this idealology;
that that mitigates what he did.  In fact, they're saying it's
not mitigation.  What it appears from Mr. Jones' argument this
morning is he's really asking you to sort of endorse these
beliefs.
         Waco is not on trial here.  I mean, the Judge has said
that.  You understand that we did not have an opportunity to
address the facts of Waco.  We're not retrying Waco.
         So why all the talk this morning about Waco?  It
sounded to me as though Mr. Jones is suggesting somehow that
you endorse McVeigh's -- Timothy McVeigh's beliefs and
therefore, what?  It could be seen as other than encouragement
of such conduct?  Again, I beg you:  Don't do anything that
would encourage this kind of conduct.
         We live in a free society.  You can plaster bumper
stickers all over your car and wear T-shirts that offend
people.  You can vote and you can do all sorts of things, but
you can't engage in violence to achieve a political end.
         Mr. Jones is somehow suggesting that that's okay.  You
know, we've had rebellions in this country; and here, yes, we
have another one.  Save his life because he wanted to start
this crazy rebellion?  Please, don't give leniency that will
encourage this kind of conduct in any others.
         The other thing that I thought was odd about this is,
well, the one thing that is clear is that you have no
responsibility for Waco.  I don't know why Mr. Jones said this;
that we all bear some responsibility.  The facts of what
happened at Waco did not come out.  What came out were Timothy
McVeigh's beliefs.  Don't feel any guilt about what happened at
Waco.  It is not your responsibility, and I won't address it
further.  I presume you all know that and shouldn't feel guilty
and shouldn't lessen his sentence, shouldn't grant leniency
because of what he believed happened at Waco.
         Of course, you heard throughout the case that Timothy
McVeigh knew full well what his First Amendment rights were and
he exercised them repeatedly.  But that wasn't enough for him,
because the truth is he didn't really want any kind of peaceful
change.  What he wanted was a violent, bloody insurrection
within this country, a revolution.  He wanted to see Americans
killing other Americans just as in The Turner Diaries, and he
wanted to be the hero of the revolution.
         Yesterday, we presented a letter in the rebuttal case;
and you recall the last paragraph in which he said -- he wrote
in a letter to the editor, "Do we have to shed blood to reform
the current system?  I hope it doesn't come to that!  But it
might."
         And what's the date of the letter?  February of '92, a
full year -- more than a year before Waco.
         This is not a man who was interested in peaceful
change.  This is a man who was interested in seeing blood flow
in the streets and was just sort of waiting for an excuse, and
Waco is served up as his final excuse.
         Of course, we all have disagreements with the
government.  We all know how to address those disagreements
because we live in a free country, enjoy certain liberties.
         Timothy McVeigh seems to think that the political
nature of his mass murder somehow mitigates against the
evilness of this act.
         Again, don't do anything to encourage that mind-set.
Don't give him a lower sentence because of Waco.  Waco should
not be a factor.  It was not on trial.  Do not let terrorism
triumph.
         Now, the three nonmitigating factors Mr. Jones
addressed -- and again, these are really outside the law.  When
you get your verdict form, you're not going to see mitigating
factors that talk about the Fortiers, the others unknown, or
the "please restore domestic tranquility."  Those are not
mitigating factors.  Those are something outside.  But he
mentioned them, so I'm going to address them.
         I guess what I'm saying is you're going to be asked to
have this balance of aggravation against mitigation.  These
come outside of that balance.  They're outside the framework.
         The first one was the Fortiers; and somehow he is
suggesting that because the Fortiers -- because Lori Fortier
got immunity that that mitigates or reduces the responsibility
and you should be lenient toward Timothy McVeigh.  Well, I'm
not here to make any excuses for the Fortiers.  What they did
was reprehensible in not calling law enforcement authorities.
         But you've got to appreciate they didn't go out and
buy two tons of ammonium nitrate and gallons upon gallons and
barrels of nitromethane.  They didn't plan this bombing six
months in advance, and they didn't drive the truck down to
Oklahoma City and detonate it in front of the building.  I
mean, there are different levels of culpability; and you've got
the mastermind before you and a responsibility to see that
justice is done to him.
         Then the second thing Mr. Jones presented, I thought,
was really just a teaser.  He said to you, "Dead men don't
talk.  One man may talk."
         Well, what a tease that is.  Who is this guy he's
talking about?  I assume he's talking about his client; that
somehow he's going to talk.  With all the leverage that's
brought on him today -- you have an opportunity to increase the
leverage on him, if there is ever any opportunity to talk; but
please, don't go back and deliberate and speculate about what
may happen in the future and what Timothy McVeigh may decide to
do.  All indications from what you've seen through this process
is we're never going to hear from him.  So don't be teased into
thinking, oh, gee, maybe we can get some information out of
this.  Forget about that.  It is pure speculation, and it
should not be grounds of any decision-making.
         And then finally, Mr. Jones has asked somehow that you
express leniency, you give him life because that's going to, as
he said, go some way to restoring domestic tranquility.  Well,
that strikes me as tantamount to almost a terrorist threat:
Hey, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, don't give him death
because other bad things may happen.
         That is pure intimidation, and I'm assuming each and
every one of you on the jury has the courage to disregard that
kind of blatant intimidation.
         I need to speak to you individually now, and I can't
really do it.  You're all sitting there together, and I can't
leave the podium and talk to you separately; so it's a little
awkward.  But for this decision, for this decision on life or
death, each of you has enormous power.  In order to impose the
death penalty, we need a unanimous decision.  It has to be all
of you.  And isn't that the way it should be in this country?
I mean, you wouldn't want individuals to make -- or even a
simple majority to make this kind of serious decision.  It has
to be unanimous.
         So I urge each and every one of you to listen
carefully to your fellow jurors, to be open-minded; and if you
find yourself in a minority of one or a small minority, ask
yourself:  Am I really acting as the conscience of the
community?  Am I acting as the conscience of the community, or
am I acting out of some kind of personal need or interest or
fear or concern?
         I urge each of you to listen to your others and to
reach a unanimous decision.
         Now, I appreciate that this is a decision that will
take some courage; but I'm sure you know that this is a moment
in history for all of us, certainly a moment in history for
you.  And it's one of those moments that calls for courage.
         So those of you who began the deliberation with a
sense that justice can be served with the death penalty, I urge
you to demonstrate the courage and to seek courage from your
fellow jurors.
         Each of you has the power in effect to overrule the
majority, to stop the majority.  Please, do not impose your
will on the majority.  Listen to each other, reach a consensus,
reach a unanimous verdict.
         Finally, I'm going to conclude with just a short
discussion about an attitude that you might bring to your
deliberations; and I'm going to talk about the process of
deciding punishment.  I don't mean by this to suggest that the
punishment that you're going to consider for Timothy McVeigh is
in any way comparable to punishments that you might impose in
other situations.  It's not.  It's the ultimate punishment.
It's a very serious decision.  All I'm talking about is the
process of deciding punishment.
         There are really three stages in every situation.  The
first, of course, we've already gone through; and that's the
guilt phase.  When you collect the facts, you ask, Well, what
happened?  You decide what happened, and you announce very
clearly what the person did wrong.  And you've done that.
You've announced Timothy McVeigh committed mass murder.
         And the second stage is deciding the punishment.  You
provide an opportunity for the person responsible to plead for
mercy.  You consider their plea, you consider the various other
factors, and you decide and firmly announce the appropriate
punishment; and that's what we're about here today and in your
deliberations.
         And then there is a third stage that is sort of
outside the law that applies as part of the punishment process.
I don't have a name for it.  I can't give it a label, but this
is what I refer to when I'm talking about an attitude you might
bring.  It's that emotional stage that most of you will go
through in facing the difficulty of making this serious
decision.  It will be emotional.  I want you to understand many
of you will feel remorse.  That's okay.  It's okay to feel
remorse.
         I'm sorry to have to ask you to do this.  I'm sorry
you have to do it.  But you do.
         Thank you.
         Thank you, your Honor.
                       JURY INSTRUCTIONS
         THE COURT:  Members of the jury, Timothy McVeigh has
been found guilty of 11 separate crimes.  The statutes defining
these offenses referred to in the indictment and in the
previous instructions given to you provide that the punishment
may be death, imprisonment for life without any possibility of
being released, or any lesser sentence provided by law and
decided upon by the Court.  The selection among these three
choices must be made by the jury.  Even though you have found
Mr. McVeigh guilty of charges which carry a possible death
sentence, the law requires that you approach this sentencing
decision with an open mind, able to give meaningful
consideration to all possible sentences.  Because the factors
to be considered include the circumstances of the offense, it
is possible that, even though all of the crimes charged are
connected with the bombing of the Murrah Building, the jury may
find differences which would justify different sentences on
different counts.  If you decide that your findings apply to
all 11 counts, you will complete and sign only Special Findings
Form A.  If you find -- if you decide that your findings are
different for any or all of the counts, you will use Special
Findings Form B and indicate the applicable counts in the space
provided, as I will be explaining to you in more detail.
Eleven of these B forms have been provided so that you may
report findings separately as to each count.
         Now, a copy of the indictment and the previous
instructions given to you at the close of the trial will also
be given to you for your reference in making your findings.
You will also, as you did have at the trial stage -- you will
have individual copies of these instructions.
         As I have told you previously, you must decide whether
the appropriate sentence for the defendant is:  (1) death; (2)
life in prison without possibility of release, or (3) some
other lesser sentence to be decided by the Court.  Your
recommendation that the defendant be sentenced either to death
or to life in prison without possibility of release will be
binding on the Court and I will sentence the defendant
according to your recommendation.  In the event you choose the
third option and recommend that the defendant receive some
lesser sentence, I will impose a sentence other than death as
authorized by law.
         Before deciding on the appropriate punishment, you
must consider additional information about the crimes and about
the uniqueness of the defendant as an individual human being.
The parties have presented information pertaining to
aggravating and mitigating factors at this sentencing hearing.
The information you may consider also includes the evidence
presented at trial.  Thus, you may consider the testimony,
exhibits and stipulations offered by both sides during the
guilt phase, and the parties were not required to reoffer that
evidence.
         Based on your consideration of evidence presented at
trial and the information presented at this sentencing hearing,
you must make a series of findings to guide you in arriving at
a reasoned moral response to the defendant's crimes,
background, character and circumstances of the offenses.  These
findings are to be entered on the Special Findings Form.
         Section I of the Special Findings Form asks you to
decide what the evidence and information provided you -- to you
at the trial and at the sentencing hearing proved as to the
defendant's intentions.  The Government has alleged that
Timothy James McVeigh committed criminal acts with four types
of intent:
         (1) That the defendant intentionally killed the
victims;
         (2) That the defendant intentionally inflicted serious
bodily injury that resulted in the death of the victims;
         (3) That the defendant intentionally participated in
an act, contemplating that the life of a person would be taken
or intending that lethal force would be used against a person,
and that the victims died as a result of that act;
         (4) That the defendant intentionally and specifically
engaged in an act of violence, knowing that the act created a
grave risk of death to a person, other than a participant in
the offense, such that participation in the act constituted a
reckless disregard for human life and the victims died as a
direct result of the act.
         There can be no sentence to death or imprisonment for
life without release unless all of the jurors agree that the
Government has proven at least one of these intentions beyond a
reasonable doubt.  You will recall that the instructions given
at the close of the trial informed you that a reasonable doubt
is the kind of doubt that would make a reasonable person
hesitate to act in the most important of his or her own
affairs.  When you have unanimously agreed on your answers to
the first four questions, the foreperson will write "Yes" or
"No" on the appropriate lines on Section I of the Special
Findings Form for each of these four intent elements.  If you
answer "No" with respect to all four elements, then conclude
your deliberations, sign the Certification in Section VI of the
form, and advise the Court that you have reached a decision.
If you answer "Yes" with respect to one or more of the
elements, then continue your deliberations and proceed to
Section II of the form.
         Section II of the Special Findings Form asks whether
the Government has proved beyond a reasonable doubt four
statutory aggravating factors.  An "aggravating factor" is some
circumstance that tends to support imposition of the death
penalty.  A statutory aggravating factor is one specifically
prescribed by Congress.  The Government has alleged four such
statutory aggravating factors:
         (1) That the deaths or injuries resulting in death
occurred during the commission of an offense under 18 United
States Code Section 844(d); that is, transportation of
explosives in interstate commerce for certain purposes;
         (2) That the defendant, in the commission of the
offense(s), knowingly created a grave risk of death to one or
more persons in addition to the victims of the offense(s);
         (3) That the defendant committed the offense(s) after
substantial planning and premeditation to cause the death of
one or more persons and to commit an act of terrorism;
         (4) That the defendant committed the offense(s)
against one or more federal law enforcement officers because of
their status as law enforcement officers.
         There are specific elements that must be established
by proof beyond a reasonable doubt for each of these four
statutory aggravating factors.
         The first statutory aggravating factor alleged is that
the deaths or injuries resulting in death occurred during the
defendant's commission of another crime: the interstate
transportation of an explosive with the knowledge and intent
that the explosive will be used to kill, injure or intimidate
any individual or unlawfully to damage or destroy any building
or property.  To establish this aggravating factor, the
Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the
essential elements of the crimes set forth in Title 18 United
States Code Section 844(d).
         That section, Title 18 United States Code Section
844(d), in pertinent part, provides that:  "Whoever transports
. . . in interstate . . . commerce any explosive with the
knowledge or intent that it will be used to kill, injure, or
intimidate any individual or unlawfully to damage or destroy
any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property,
shall be guilty" of a federal felony.  There are two essential
elements to this crime.  First, the defendant must knowingly
and willfully have transported an explosive from one state to
another.  Second, the defendant must have done so with the
knowledge or intent that the explosive would be used to kill,
injure, or intimidate any individual or unlawfully to damage or
destroy any building, vehicle, or other real property.
         To act knowingly and willfully, a defendant must have
been conscious and aware of his action, must have realized what
he was doing, and must not have acted because of ignorance,
mistake or accident.  The defendant must also be shown to have
acted with a bad purpose or evil intent; that is, he must have
transported the explosive with the knowledge or intent that it
would be used to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual or
unlawfully to damage or destroy any building, vehicle, or other
real or personal property.
         The term "explosive" means gunpowders, powders used
for blasting, all forms of high explosives, blasting materials,
detonators, and other detonating agents, smokeless powders, and
any chemical compounds, mechanical mixture, or device that
contains any oxidizing and combustible units, or other
ingredients, in such proportions, quantities, or packing that
ignition by fire, by friction, by concussion, by percussion, or
by detonation of the compound, mixture, or device or any part
thereof may cause an explosion.
         The second statutory aggravating factor alleged is
that the defendant, in the commission of the offense(s) in the
indictment, knowingly created a grave risk of death to one or
more persons in addition to the dead victims of the offense(s).
This aggravating factor requires you to find that the
defendant's conduct not only resulted in death but also posed a
significant risk of death to other persons who were in close
proximity to those who died in terms of time and location.  The
defendant must have acted knowingly in creating this grave risk
of death to other persons, which means that he must have been
conscious and aware of the grave risk of death, must have
realized what he was doing, and must not have acted because of
ignorance, mistake or accident.
         The third statutory aggravating factor alleged is that
the defendant committed the offense(s) after substantial
planning and premeditation to cause the death of one or more
persons and to commit an act of terrorism.  Substantial means
that the planning and premeditation must have been more than
the minimum required for the commission of the offense(s).  An
"act of terrorism" means an activity that involves:  (a) a
violent act or an act dangerous to human life that violates
federal law; and (b) appears to be intended to intimidate or
coerce a civilian population or to influence the policy of a
government by intimidation or coercion.
         The fourth statutory aggravating factor alleged is
that the defendant committed the offense(s) against one or more
federal law enforcement officers because of their status as law
enforcement officers.  The Government must -- thus must prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended to kill
law enforcement officers because of their status as law
enforcement officers.  This does not mean that the defendant
must have intended to kill the particular law enforcement
officers named in Counts Four through Eleven of the indictment.
What the Government must prove is that the defendant intended
to kill federal law enforcement officers, and that this intent
resulted in the murder of the federal law enforcement officers
named in Counts Four through Eleven of the indictment, because
of their status as law enforcement officers.
         The Government must prove at least one of these
statutory aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt.  You
should write "Yes" or "No" on the appropriate lines on Section
II of the Special Findings Form to indicate your unanimous
answers to the question of whether the Government proved the
existence of each particular factor beyond a reasonable doubt.
If you answer "No" with respect to all four factors, then
conclude your deliberations, sign the Certification in Section
VI of the form, and advise the Court that you've reached a
decision.  If you answer "Yes" with respect to one or more of
these four factors, then continue your deliberations and
proceed to Section III of the form.
         Section III of the Special Findings Form asks you to
find whether the Government has proved beyond a reasonable
doubt three additional aggravating factors, called
non-statutory aggravating factors, it has alleged.  Again, an
"aggravating factor" is some circumstance that tends to support
imposition of the death penalty.  A non-statutory aggravating
factor is one that Congress has not specifically prescribed.
The three non-statutory aggravating factors alleged are:
         (1) That the offense(s) committed by the defendant
resulted in the deaths of 168 persons;
         (2) That, in committing the offense(s), the defendant
caused serious physical and emotional injury, including
maiming, disfigurement, and permanent disability, to numerous
individuals;
         (3) That, by committing the offense(s), the defendant
caused severe injuries and losses suffered by the victims'
families.
         These non-statutory factors are self-explanatory and
do not require further instruction.  You should write "Yes" or
"No" on the appropriate lines of Section III of the Special
Findings Form for each of these three non-statutory aggravating
factors, to indicate whether you unanimously find that the
Government proved each factor beyond a reasonable doubt.
Regardless of your findings as to any non-statutory aggravating
factors, you should consider your -- continue your
deliberations and proceed to Section IV.
         Now, Section IV of the Special Findings Form asks you
to find whether the defendant has proved any mitigating factors
by a preponderance of the evidence.  Mitigating factors are not
limited by statute.  The law permits you to consider any
relevant mitigating information presented by the defendant.
"Relevant mitigating information" includes anything in the
defendant's background, record, or character, or any
circumstances of the offense, which suggests to you that a
sentence other than death should be imposed.  The defendant
must prove the existence of mitigating factors by a
preponderance of the evidence or information.
         A "preponderance of the evidence" or information means
an amount of evidence or information sufficient to persuade you
that a contention is more likely true than not true or that a
factor is more likely present than not present.
         Not only is the burden of persuasion different for
aggravating and mitigating factors, the unanimity requirement
that exists for aggravating factors does not exist with respect
to mitigating factors.  Any one or more jurors may find the
existence of a mitigating factor and may then consider that
factor in weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors even
though other jurors may not agree that the particular
mitigating factor has been established.  This weighing decision
must be made by each juror giving individual consideration to
the aggravating factors unanimously found by all of the jurors
and such mitigating factors as may be found by each juror.
         The defense has presented information about views and
opinions that some people have expressed concerning federal law
enforcement activities, including their perception of the
events at Waco.  You will recall that when that information was
received, I said that it was admitted only for the limited
purpose of explaining Timothy McVeigh's views, perceptions and
beliefs for whatever consideration you may wish to give them
with respect to the circumstances of the offense(s).  You and
you alone will determine whether that information has any
relevance as mitigating factors to the -- to be considered in
the weighing process.  You are not here to determine what
actually happened at Waco or to make your own evaluation of the
Government's conduct in that or any other law enforcement
activities.
         After completing your findings as to the existence or
absence of any aggravating or mitigating factors, you will then
engage in a weighing process.  In determining whether a
sentence of death is appropriate, all of you must weigh any
aggravating factors, statutory and non-statutory, that you
unanimously found to exist and each of you must weigh any
mitigating factors that you individually found to exist.  The
jury must determine if the proven aggravating factor or factors
sufficiently outweigh any proven mitigating factor or factors
to justify a sentence of death.
         The process of weighing aggravating and mitigating
factors is not a mechanical process.  You should not simply
count the number of aggravating and mitigating factors and
decide which number is greater, but instead you should consider
the weight and value of each factor.  Whatever findings you
make with respect to aggravating and mitigating factors, a jury
is never required to impose a death sentence.
         Your role in this proceeding is to be the conscience
of the community in making a moral judgment about the worth of
a specific life balanced against the societal value of what the
Government contends to be -- or is the deserved punishment for
these particular crimes.  Your decision must be a reasoned one
free from the influence of passion, prejudice or any other
arbitrary factor.
         After engaging in the process described above, the
jury must record its moral judgment as to the appropriate
sentence.  The place for recording the sentence is Section V of
the Special Findings Form.  The jury must write in on the line
one of three possible sentences:  (1) "Death"; (2) "Life
Imprisonment Without Possibility of Release"; or (3) "Some
Other Lesser Sentence."  Each member of the jury then should
sign his or her name at the bottom of Section V.
         The jury, in considering whether a sentence of death
is justified, shall not consider the race, color, religious
beliefs, national origin, or sex of the defendant or of any
victim and the jury is not to recommend a sentence of death
unless it has concluded that it would recommend a sentence of
death for the crime no matter what the race, color, religious
beliefs, national origin, or sex of the defendant or of any
victim may be.  Section VI of the Special Findings Form
contains the certification to this effect that must be signed
by each juror.
         Now, as I said, you will have the Special Findings
Forms available to you; and of course, you will use them.  And
again, I'm providing a draft or a work copy form that may be
used as you go through this process, so that you don't have the
possibility of making a mistake in recording something and then
having to scratch it out or something.  So you have a work
form.
         Also, I mentioned to you in the instructions that you
have two forms to work with.  Special Findings Form A would be
applicable if your findings apply to all 11 counts, so it says
that.  Special findings Form A:  These findings apply to all 11
counts, if that be your decision.  Then you simply use this
form and go through and make the findings in accordance with
the instructions.  And I believe that the questions are very
clear here and do not require my repeating them again as I have
in the instructions.
         On the other hand, you have certainly the possibility
that your findings will be separate according to different
counts.  And it is for that reason that you're being provided
11 Special Findings Forms B, so that with the possibility that
your findings would be different as to each count, you may
record them 11 times to the 11 counts.
         And then for your convenience, it says, "These
findings apply to the following counts," and repeats the counts
of the indictment, Count One . . . and again reminding you what
each count is.  And of course, as I've already indicated, you
will have a copy of the indictment as you did when you
deliberated with respect to the guilt or innocence of each
count, so that you can refer back to them.  And again, a work
copy has been provided for you.
         Now, I must ask whether the people seated in the first
12 chairs who are also the people who decided -- deliberated
and decided with respect to each of the counts of the
indictment are now able to go forward and proceed to make the
findings necessary to determine the sentence in this case.
         Are there any among you who are unable to do that?
         All right.  Now, if you'll pardon me for just a
moment, I'm going for ask counsel to approach the bench to take
up a matter just very briefly with them before coming back to
address you.
    (At the bench:)
    (Bench Conference 148B1 is not herein transcribed by court
order.  It is transcribed as a separate sealed transcript.)














    (In open court:)
         THE COURT:  Let me just add one additional
instruction, of course; and it's the same that I gave you when
I instructed you with respect to the guilt or innocence
decisions that you made before you deliberated; and that is
counsel have commented in their closing arguments in this

sentencing phase with respect to the law.  And what I would
instruct you, if there appears to you to be any difference
between any of the statements of counsel with respect to the
law and that which I give you in these instructions, including
these Special Findings Forms, you will be guided, of course, by
my instructions and these forms.
         Now, the 12 persons who deliberated in this case and
who have indicated that they are ready, willing, and able to
proceed to make the necessary findings here will do so.
         The six of you who are alternates are now excused.
And we're not going to have you stand by as we did the last
time, because the deliberations now will be made by these 12
people.
         I want to, before excusing you, of course, on behalf
of all of us, thank you for your service; and I'm sure you had
mixed emotions with respect to this and your participation in
it.  You have been with the deliberating jurors both before
their decision and, of course, after, standing by, ready to be
able to participate in this decision.
         Under the law, the decision will be made by 12 people,
and they are the 12 originally selected.
         So once again, on behalf of all of us, I thank you for
your participation in this case, ask you now to go to the jury
room and pick up whatever you have there, and we'll take you to
a different room, also provide you lunch, and ask of you that
until these 12 people have reached their findings and made
their decision, please continue to follow the cautions that
I've given the jurors, all of you, at every recess.  You can
talk about the case among yourselves -- that changes -- but not
with anybody else, until these findings are returned.
         So our alternate jurors are now excused from the
courtroom.
    (Alternate jurors out at 12:13 p.m.)
         THE COURT:  Members of the jury, I didn't repeat this
in the instructions; but I'm sure you understand that now, just
as when I instructed you before, you -- your deliberations are
among the 12 of you.  You're not to communicate with anyone,
even to the Court, the status of your deliberations until you
have answered the questions in accordance with the instructions
and signed off on the form or forms.
         And if you feel it necessary to communicate with the
Court, again, you may do so in the same fashion as before.  Do
so by the submission of a written note which will be given to
me and then which I will respond to.  And, of course, with
respect to any other needs that the jury may have, you can do
as before the method of communication so that we can provide
what you need.
         Once again, do not indicate to anyone the status of
your deliberations until they are completed.
         Members of the jury, you will now retire to consider
the questions before you in accordance with these instructions.
    (Jury out at 12:14 p.m.)
         THE COURT:  As before, we will be -- ask counsel to be
available no more than 10 minutes away; and also, if you
haven't heard from us before 10 minutes before 5, be here at 10
minutes before 5.
         With that, the Court will be in recess subject to
call.
    (Recess at 12:15 p.m.)
                         *  *  *  *  *









                             INDEX
Item                                                      Page
CLOSING ARGUMENTS
    By Ms. Wilkinson                           
    By Mr. Burr                                
    By Mr. Jones                               
    Rebuttal Argument By Mr. Hartzler          
JURY INSTRUCTIONS                              
                         *  *  *  *  *
                    REPORTERS' CERTIFICATE
    We certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from
the record of proceedings in the above-entitled matter.  Dated
at Denver, Colorado, this 12th day of June, 1997.

                                 _______________________________
                                         Paul Zuckerman

                                 _______________________________
                                          Kara Spitler