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More potential jurors quizzed in Nichols trial
October 15, 1997
Web posted at: 11:08 p.m. EDT (0308 GMT)DENVER (CNN) -- A woman who is four months pregnant assured the judge in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Terry Nichols that she could serve as a juror despite her condition.
She was one of a group of potential jurors interviewed Wednesday, bringing the total number of people questioned to 71 as the third week of jury selection continued.
Also among those queried Wednesday was a retired engineer who said he could impose the death penalty or a life in prison sentence, depending on the circumstances. That is the type of response federal law requires for a potential juror to be kept in the jury pool, from which 12 jurors and six alternates will be chosen.
When the court session ended, questioning of the 71st juror was under way. She is one of the few African-American women interviewed so far.
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She said she had no strong opinions on the death penalty, and she insisted that she could be fair about deciding punishment.
Another woman, from Buena Vista, Colorado, said that if the accused bomber is found guilty, he should be sentenced to death.
"If he is guilty on all counts, then he should be put to death," she told U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch and attorneys for both sides.
A 64-year-old man who earlier in the day said he could never impose the death penalty, which would have disqualified him from the jury pool, finally conceded that he could take another person's life in defense of his country.
"I just believe that no one should take anybody's life other than God," he said.
But lead defense lawyer Michael Tigar, who would likely want to have such a person on the jury, was able to get the man, a Korean War veteran, to agree that it would be moral to take the life of someone who threatened the United States.
"I would definitely want to defend my country if they were at my shores," he said.
Another prospective juror, a woman, had served twice on juries -- once in an illegal entry trial and once in a trespassing trial.
When asked if she knew anyone involved in the Nichols trial, the woman said she knew Matsch's brother, to which the judge replied, "He's bigger and better looking."
She also said that while in college her roommate was the judge's niece, but she said it would have no impact on her ability to be impartial.
Friday afternoon, lawyers and the judge will discuss which of those interviewed this week are qualified to remain in the pool.
Nichols, 42, is charged with murder and conspiracy in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others, the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil.
Nichols' co-defendant, Timothy McVeigh, 29, was convicted of the same charges in June. He was given a death sentence, which he is now appealing.
T H E B O M B I N G / C N N S T O R I E S / L I N K S
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