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| EXECUTION DELAYED | |
 May 11, 2001  |
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Attorney General John Ashcroft postpones convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's execution for one month.
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 RAY
SUAREZ: Where do things go from here? We get three views. Christopher
Tritico was one of Timothy McVeigh's trial attorneys; he practices law
in Texas. Alan Strasser is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington,
D.C.; he's now in private practice. Clinton Van Zandt is a 25-year veteran
special agent with the FBI; he co-managed the Bureau's major crisis management
program; he now runs a private consulting firm.
Christopher Tritico, how does this revelation change the landscape for Timothy McVeigh and his legal team? CHRISTOPHER TRITICO: Well, what it does is it gives, like Robb just said a moment ago, let's take a fresh look at this. I don't know what's in these documents. This could be trivial; it could be huge. If it's huge, then I expect to see Tim file a motion for a further stay of execution so that we can do a proper investigation, look at these 3200 documents in comparison with the thousands, hundreds of thousands of documents that have already been delivered in the case - and see how it plays out, and then decide if we need an evidentiary hearing in front of Judge Masch. That's what I see happening
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| A chance of a different outcome? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: It's been noted quite a bit today that this is a man who has publicly talked about his responsibility for this crime. Could this sudden supply of documents really change the outcome of this case?
RAY SUAREZ: Alan Strasser, you heard Mr. Tritico. In your view, what stands between Timothy McVeigh and a re-visit of this case? ALAN STRASSER: I agree with him completely that you have to look at what the evidence is, whether in these thousands of pages of documents some witness statements, some photographs and tapes I read also - I wonder what those are. We'll see what effect that would have in this case. Remember, this was the prosecution arrested on circumstantial evidence; there isn't any direct eyewitness that implicates Mr. McVeigh, so the question is: Did this somehow affect the credibility of some witness who testified for the government? Are there inconsistent statements from prior witnesses, witnesses who had a different view of it? You really have to know what was not disclosed. It may turn out to be trivial. RAY SUAREZ: In the law as it stands right now, is it more significant that these documents were requested and not turned over, or must they be exculpatory, that is, go to Timothy McVeigh's possible innocence?
RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Tritico, does this speak perhaps to whether or not Timothy McVeigh would have received the death penalty? I mean, perhaps the guilt or innocence conclusion might be the same but the penalty phase might be different. CHRISTOPHER TRITICO: Absolutely. It could be. And let me give you one more instance. Let's assume, and I've heard all day there may be some evidence about the John Doe number 2 guy in these 3200 documents, let's assume that these documents show that there truly was a person who was also involved in the bombing of the Murrah Building, who directed and controlled this conspiracy to blow up a building. That makes him a lesser player in the conspiracy and possibly mitigate his sentence to life instead of death. |
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| Sifting through the evidence | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: Clinton Van Zandt, let's talk a little bit about being on the ground in one of these major investigations. When you read about 3,000 pieces of evidence, to the layman it sounds like a huge amount.
RAY SUAREZ: Let's talk a little bit about the chain of evidence, the path that these pieces of information take. How could they have not reached where they were meant to go? CLINTON VAN ZANDT: In a case - a major case like this every FBI field office, 40, 50, how many we have today, would be involved in that investigation. In this particular case 45 offices plus our league at in Paris, France, had some type of what will probably prove to be nebulous investigation that went nowhere that they conducted. And, you know, the American people are going to be challenged by this, but the FBI's information retrieval computer system was not worth a darn at that time. They're in the process of changing it. The FBI pulled that computer system and said we have to give every document to defense. Every FBI office sent it to us. The FBI ran it through the computer system and they said they did. We've got everything. Finally, when the Department of Justice and Director Freeh said do a hand search and make sure that we have done this, that's when these 3100 documents surfaced. But, again, my knowledge of the case - there's not going to be a smoking gun. Should the FBI be slapped on the wrist? Absolutely. Should they get a new computer system? Yes. This is evidence of a conspiracy to deprive Americans of the civil rights even though he's a confessed mass murderer, absolutely not, Ray.
ALAN STRASSER: Well, in the last five or six years Congress has limited the availability of habeas corpus to every criminal defendant, not just somebody charged with murder and given the death penalty. The standard that a court would apply, if this is ever brought to a court, is whether there's a reasonable probability that the outcome would have been different. So not every single mistake by the prosecutor or by the FBI automatically gives someone a new trial. The real question is how important is this evidence? Mr. Van Zandt is correct, that it's their vague leak that didn't amount to anything that won't affect his getting a new trial or a new sentence. If it's different from that, if it undermines circumstantial evidence, then a judge will have to weigh that and decide whether you should get either a new trial or a new sentencing hearing. RAY SUAREZ: Well, you heard Rob Nye, the lawyer, refer to examining these documents and Timothy McVeigh, keeping an open mind, taking a fresh look. If the defense wanted to play go slow on this, do they need an opposite force in the government that might want to move things along? ALAN STRASSER: I think the Government will press some here. The Government wants the public to have confidence in the justice system, the confidence that the right man has been caught and convicted and sentenced appropriately. So I don't think the Government will press this very fast, so I would expect a little resistance. |
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| A new date | ||||||||||||||||||||
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CHRISTOPHER TRITICO: I think what you're going to see Judge Masch be called upon to do within the next 30 days rule on a motion for a further stay of execution filed by him. I don't see that the investigation that needs to be done by the defense team can be done in 30 days, and so what you're probably going to find is a motion filed for a stay, and Judge Masch will have to make a ruling on that. It's my view that it's going to take probably 90 days to really do a proper investigation, maybe longer than that, and of course again that all depends on what we find in the documents. RAY SUAREZ: And on what Timothy McVeigh decides? CHRISTOPHER TRITICO: Absolutely. I think that to some degree you know Tim had already decided once that he didn't want to prosecute the appeal of his writ, and that was weighed by his writ lawyers at the time, Tim may come to the conclusion again that I don't want to do this. We'll have to wait and see. I have a feeling - although I haven't talked to Rob yet - I have a feeling that Rob will be pressing Tim at this point - we've got to do the right thing here and make sure that we've done everything we can do to protect your civil rights, and so I think that Tim's going to get a little more resistance from Rob than he got from the writ lawyers at the time he dropped the first appeal. RAY SUAREZ: Do you agree that that June 11th day is not looking like a realistic date to you?
RAY SUAREZ: And Christopher Van Zandt, a black eye for the FBI? CLINTON VAN ZANDT: Well, I think the FBI needs to put some makeup on themselves and I think they need to get a new computer system, but I think these documents are going to wind up in - most of them in the unimportant few and let's take a second look and that final pile very important - going to affect the trial - I don't think we're going to see documents land in that pile. RAY SUAREZ: Thank you, gentlemen, all. |
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CHRISTOPHER
TRITICO: It could conceivably, depending on what's in the documents
and what's the evidence that we didn't get. But the broader issue here
is why didn't we get these documents, and a further showing of a pattern
by the FBI to fail to turn over evidence in critical cases. What we
need to do right now is put the book aside and determine if the Constitution
was upheld and did this citizen or any citizen get the due process that's
required by the Bill of Rights? If he didn't, let's decide how to do
it, and then we have to deal with the difficult issues that the book
gives us. And that's a problematic issue.
ALAN
STRASSER: I think in this case it probably will not matter whether these
specific documents were requested. The question is: What is in them?
There was some sort of discovery agreement between the defense and the
government here. The government concedes that the documents should have
been turned over, but that still doesn't tell us anything about the
import of - 
CLINTON
VAN ZANDT: Well, you have to realize number one the FBI conducted over
20,000 interviews, and there was hundreds of thousands of pieces of
paper it generated. To go with a hypothetical that was just posed by
your last guest, we're not going to find a smoking gun there, or smoking
tear gas, grenade or anything else. What we're going to find are interviews
that was conducted of Mrs. Jones, who saw a Ryder truck two weeks ago
and thought it was suspicious and called the FBI. An agent went out
dutifully got that information and recorded it on an FD3L2 insert or
took a picture, but we are not going to find evidence that there was
unsolved - a mysterious person number 2. I was part of that investigation
and the FBI spent hundreds of thousands of man-hours trying to find
unsolved number 2. There is no other person, other than the indicted
and convicted co-conspirator in this case.
RAY
SUAREZ: Alan Strasser, has the bar been set higher for people trying
to get a new trial?
RAY
SUAREZ: What about the role, Christopher Tritico, of the trial judge
in all of this, does he have a lot of leeway? 
ALAN
STRASSER: I think it would be very hard for Judge Masch to insist on
that date. Who knows how long it took the FBI to investigate and gather
this information to begin with? A 30 day delay is probably not enough
time for the defense to investigate it adequately. Again, it depends
on what's there.