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McVeigh attorneys arrive to discuss stay
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana (CNN) -- Attorneys for convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh said Thursday they expect him to give them the green light to seek a further delay of his execution so they can review thousands of pages of evidence recently turned over by the FBI. McVeigh attorneys Robert Nigh and Richard Burr have arrived at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, and expect to meet with McVeigh for a few hours. Leaving his hotel for the meeting, Burr told CNN he was "fairly optimistic" that McVeigh would authorize them to seek a stay of his execution, which is now scheduled for June 11. He said that papers requesting the stay had already been drafted. "He (McVeigh) is deeply concerned and always has been about police overreaching, particularly federal police," Burr said. "And this is a case where we now know partly that the FBI has done a lot of covering up, delaying things, not wanting to give over things, and our research suggests that there's a whole lot more of that, and that they're not now being honest that they've given us everything. So we think it's very serious."
On Wednesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he will "vigorously oppose" any attempt to further delay the execution of McVeigh, convicted of murder for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people. "After an exhaustive review, it remains clear that none of the belatedly produced material raises any doubt about McVeigh's guilt," Ashcroft said. But McVeigh's attorneys have already said they need more time to review 4,000 pages of documents the FBI said it inadvertently withheld from his trial lawyers. McVeigh's execution was postponed last month after the FBI announced it had not turned over all relevant material, and Ashcroft decided to give the McVeigh team time to review the documents, even though he maintained from the start that the material did nothing to cast any doubt on McVeigh's guilt. Nigh and Burr are expected to ask McVeigh for his permission to seek a stay of execution. The motion would be filed before trial judge Richard Matsch in Denver by McVeigh's other co-counsel, Nathan Chambers. McVeigh believes the documents the FBI failed to provide his defense are "worthy of judicial review," Nigh said. In addition, the attorney told CNN on Wednesday, "We don't think that the government has turned over everything to us." A Justice Department spokeswoman, Chris Watney, previously denied that there are any additional documents that have not been provided. One of McVeigh's former attorneys predicted the convicted bomber has a legitimate "avenue for judicial review" in spite of his previous decision to drop all appeals. "It's sort of a different ball game because, now, it looks like the integrity of the trial and the verdict could be at issue because of the failure of the FBI to turn over documents, whether it be negligence. It could also be misconduct; we do not know," said attorney Jeralyn Merritt. |
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