August 15, 1995
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (CNN) -- Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols pleaded not guilty Tuesday at arraignments in federal court on charges that could bring the death penalty if they are convicted in the April 19 bombing of the Murrah federal building.
McVeigh's arraignment lasted only nine minutes. He gave his name, age -- 27 -- and when asked for a plea, he responded, "Sir, I plead not guilty." Then it was his alleged partner's turn.
"You all heard Terry Nichols say in a clear, strong voice: 'I am innocent,'" his attorney, Michael Tigar, told reporters afterward. In the courthouse were members of Nichols family, including his older brother, James, who had earlier been charged with federal firearms violations in an unrelated Michigan case and had been considered a possible material witness in the Oklahoma City bombing. His mother Joyce, a sister and a brother-in-law also were on hand, Tigar said. They all drove from Michigan to offer their support.
McVeigh's lawyer, Stephen Jones, said he considers it crucial to "domestic tranquillity" that his client receive "an absolutely fair trial." Holding up a bombing T-shirt being sold in Oklahoma City, he said a fair trial is not possible in the city where every judge and many citizens know somebody who was killed in the bombing.
Jones said he did not believe any "right thinking, fair minded Oklahoman" believed that McVeigh could get a fair trial in Oklahoma City. McVeigh still faces state charges, said Jones, so Oklahoma will not lose the opportunity to have a trial for McVeigh.
He said the prosecution and defense agreed that it would not be possible to go to trial within 70 days. Jones quoted U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan as saying the defense and prosecution are still "1,500 miles apart" on where the trial should be held.
Tigar also insisted a change of venue is necessary. "I understand what people in this building feel about these events, and I'm not challenging those feelings," he said. "I just question whether it's possible for these people to sit in fair judgment of these events." (369K sound file)
Jones would not go into the defense strategy, but he noted Dr. Fred Jordan, the Oklahoma medical examiner, had said Monday that no match has yet been made between a severed leg found in the wreckage of the building and one of the known victims. It is only common sense, Jones said, to believe that the leg belonged to "a person associated with the bomber." Jordan himself would not rule out that possibility.
Tigar said the government "is sitting on a vast storehouse of information" gathered in its four-month investigation of the attack. "We believe that in that storehouse are powerful clues to the innocence of Terry Nichols," he said.(369K sound file)
A total of 168 people died as a result of the bombing. Another 500 were injured. McVeigh and Nichols are charged in the deaths of the 160 people who died in the federal building the day of the blast.
