Nichols seeks plea bargain in Oklahoma bomb trial
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Terry Nichols is escorted from the Pittsburg County Courthouse in Oklahoma following a preliminary hearing on February 10.
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OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Terry Nichols, already serving a federal life sentence for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, is seeking a plea bargain on state murder charges that carry the death penalty, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
Nichols, convicted on federal charges of manslaughter and conspiracy in the deaths of eight federal officers among the 168 people killed in the bombing, is scheduled to face trial in an Oklahoma court on March 1 for the murder of the other 160 victims.
He is likely to receive the death penalty if convicted in the trial which is expected to last up to six months and be the most expensive in Oklahoma's history. The cash-strapped state has had difficulty in paying for the case.
Attorneys for Nichols, 48, said in the motion that they have been offering the plea deal for months.
"We need to make it perfectly clear that Mr. Nichols is willing -- and has been willing -- to enter a no contest plea to all counts in the pending information (trial) if the state would dismiss the bill of particulars and not seek the death penalty against him," the motion said.
In a statement, Oklahoma County District Attorney Wes Lane rejected the plea bargain and said Nichols was trying to escape responsibility for his role in the bombing.
A no contest plea has the same effect as a guilty plea but it does not explicitly state responsibility for the crime.
Some leading newspaper in the state have backed a plea bargain, saying a new trial will only rekindle painful memories.
Nichols' former army buddy, Timothy McVeigh, was executed in the federal death chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana in 2001. He had been convicted of the murder of the eight federal officers in the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building.
Prosecutors charged Nichols with 160 state murder charges in 2000, intending to seek the death penalty because they were not satisfied with his federal sentence of life without parole.
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