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The Defendant | The Defense | The Jury | The Prosecutor |The Judge
Jury of Nichols' peers chosen
(CNN) -- A remedial reading teacher, a geophysicist , a banker who was once robbed, an electrician, two school bus drivers and a grandmother are among the 12 jurors selected to decide if Terry Nichols plotted to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building.
The seven women and five men were chosen from a pool of 71 prospective jurors summoned from Denver and 23 surrounding counties. Prosecution and defense lawyers exercised the 23 peremptory strikes allowed them, dismissing 46 from the pool of potential jurors.
Once the panel was assembled, the first 18 people remaining in the pool were picked to be the 12 jurors and six alternates.
Prospective panelists in the Nichols trial survived an arduous, four-week process in which they were quizzed about their backgrounds, their views on capital punishment and whether the extensive pretrial publicity had an impact on their ability to render an impartial verdict.
Ten members of the jury are white; two are black. During the jury selection process presiding Judge Richard Matsch said having a cross section of the community was important, especially in a case that could lead to the death penalty.
The jury selection task was something of a rerun for Matsch, who labored mightily to protect the privacy of the jurors in the Timothy McVeigh trial. The judge's efforts had extended to the courtroom as well. There were no cameras, and the jury panel heard testimony sitting behind a wall that partially obscured them from curious eyes.
Nichols, a former Army buddy of McVeigh, faces a possible death sentence for his alleged role in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City. The explosion of a Ryder rental truck, packed with about 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, killed 168 people in the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
Unlike McVeigh, Nichols attended the juror screening session, which took place just days before his trial was to begin. A clerk at the U.S. District Court in Denver said prospective jurors were introduced to Nichols and the attorneys for both sides, and filled out a lengthy questionnaire.
T H E B O M B I N G / T H E P L A Y E R S / C N N S T O R I E S / L I N K S
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