McVeigh re-evaluates his decision

by Brigitte Greenberg
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Timothy McVeigh's lawyers said yesterday that he is re-evaluating his position on wanting to be executed after learning the FBI failed to disclose evidence in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

The FBI's lapse has prompted members of Congress to urge hearings into how it happened, and one Democrat wants President Bush to appoint a blue-ribbon commission to review the FBI.

McVeigh has not instructed his defense team to pursue a particular legal strategy. But attorney Robert Nigh said that when McVeigh made his original decision not to pursue further appeals, he had no idea the FBI had withheld evidence.

"In light of that, it's completely reasonable for him to re-evaluate his position," Nigh told Fox News Sunday. "The facts of the case are now certainly at issue."

McVeigh "has indicated now that he is at least willing to take a fresh look at things, hear our analysis of the facts contained within the documents and our legal analysis of his options," Nigh said on CBS' ••Face the Nation••.

A second defense lawyer questioned whether the FBI has disclosed all evidence. "Are we going to learn next week that there are yet more documents?" Nathan Chambers said on ABC's This Week.

A former prosecutor in the case said she believed the foul-up was unintentional and that the documents should not affect the outcome of the case.

"He has confessed to the crime. The evidence during the trial was absolutely overwhelming," Beth Wilkinson said on ABC. "I believe it is very unlikely that there will be any information that would be useful to Mr. McVeigh."

McVeigh and his lawyers are considering whether to seek a delay in his execution, scheduled for Wednesday but postponed until June 11 by Attorney General John Ashcroft because of the evidence foul-up.

Ashcroft said he will not impose any further delays.

Just days before McVeigh was to be executed, the FBI disclosed that some 3,135 investigation materials - including interview reports and physical evidence, such as photographs, letters and tapes - were withheld from McVeigh's lawyers.

McVeigh was to be executed for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, including 19 children.

The defense team has just begun reviewing the documents and Nigh said he was not prepared to disclose what was in them. He did, however, contend that "the fact of the production itself could possibly change the legal outcome of the case."

McVeigh, who is in a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., had indicated he "did not wish to spend the rest of his life in an 8-by-12 cell," Nigh said. But that was after losing court appeals, and before the new evidence now available to him, the lawyer said.

Asked about trying to put off the execution beyond June 11, Nigh said: "It is his case, and he has to determine what he wants to do."

Ashcroft was quoted in yesterday's editions of The Daily Oklahoman as saying that "ample time" has been given to the defense lawyers and that he has no intention of again extending the execution date.

He expressed confidence the courts will not order a new trial for McVeigh. "These documents are not going to create any basis - that I could in any way foresee - for a new trial."

Also yesterday, lawmakers pushed for congressional hearings, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said he would ask Bush for a special commission to examine the FBI from top to bottom.

Schumer cited a number of problems at the FBI, including the February arrest of agent Robert Philip Hanssen, who is charged with selling national secrets to Moscow, and a botched investigation last year of former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.

"We've had mistake after mistake after mistake," he said on CBS.

Ashcroft already has announced a separate Justice Department investigation.