McVeith tells attorneys he's done with legal system
Execution will proceed
Appellate court affirms stay denial
By Zach Taylor
Tribune-Star
The execution of Timothy McVeigh on Monday took a giant leap toward certainty Thursday when the convicted killer announced through his lawyers that he will not seek clemency.
"He has reached the point that he wants us to press no further," McVeigh attorney Rob Nigh said after the U.S. Court of Appeals 10th Circuit affirmed a lower court's decision to deny McVeigh's application for a stay of execution.
"It would be tempting to urge him to continue, but quite frankly we are not in his position," said Nigh of Tulsa, Okla. "And we don't have to make the mental preparations that he does."
McVeigh will be the first federal prisoner executed in nearly 40 years. Nigh described his client as "extremely calm" and said McVeigh decided to end his appeals to "try and create some peace."
"He has family and friends that he must say his good-byes to," Nigh said. "The kind of psychological preparation he has to go through, only he can know and other people in his position can know."
He added that McVeigh believed clemency was a "meaningless gesture."
"He did not expect President Bush to spare his life and he was not going to ask President Bush to spare his life," Nigh said.
Susan Walton, a survivor of the April 19, 1995, bombing, appeared relieved with the court's ruling and McVeigh's decision not to seek clemency.
"I think the courts made the right decision," she said. "A person is allowed so many appeals under our system of justice and he has exhausted and waived his and I would say it's time that it was carried out.
"I'm not so sure that there's ever such a thing as closure, but it will definitely be a step in the healing process."
Nigh said he was unsure if McVeigh had decided to end his appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals 10th Circuit affirmation of the lower court ruling. Appellate judges David Ebel, Paul J. Kelly and Michael Murphy spent about seven hours Thursday reviewing McVeigh's emergency application for stay of execution before denying it.
The appeal came a day after U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch denied the stay request. McVeigh is convicted of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
McVeigh, who first ended his appeals in December, sought the stay after the FBI turned over nearly 4,500 pages of documents one week before his original May 16 execution date. McVeigh's attorneys were supposed to get those documents, collected during the bombing investigation, at the time of his trial.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft postponed the execution for 30 days to give McVeigh's lawyers time to review the documents, but the attorneys said it wasn't enough time.
"Thirty days, actually three weeks, was not enough time for us to read over 4,000 pages of documents, view the videos and the photographs that we got and conduct an investigation into what we believe is truly some very important excluded ... material by the FBI," attorney Chris Tritico said shortly after filing the appeal.
The appeal states that, if given the time, McVeigh's lawyers could show the FBI suppressed credible evidence that other people played a significant role in the bombing, which may change the jury's view of McVeigh's role and moral guilt in the bombing.
"There was also evidence, withheld by the government, that another person could well have been the mastermind behind the bombing," the appeal said. "Mr. McVeigh ... does not claim that the withheld evidence could change the guilty verdicts for murder. He does claim ... that he was denied due process when the prosecution withheld evidence concerning participation by others."
McVeigh's lawyers further claim that the FBI's failure to produce the documents during the trial creates a fraud on the court and said Matsch "succumbed to the human tragedy of this case" in his decision.
The appellate court disagreed. "McVeigh has utterly failed to demonstrate substantial grounds upon which relief might be granted," the appellate court judges said in their decision.
University of Michigan Law School professor Richard Friedman said the court of appeals probably took into consideration the impact the FBI documents would have on the case when the judges made their decision.
"If there's something there, then you've got to postpone the execution," Friedman said. "But you can't postpone it just because they're asking. They've got to show there's something real."
He added that even if McVeigh had not ended his appeals, it is unlikely the Supreme Court would have become involved.
"I would say that if the trial judge and the appellate court both turn it down, it's unlikely that the Supreme Court would take it," Friedman said. "I think it's unlikely that they would grant the stay."
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